Like most people my age, I find myself wondering if the amount of alcohol I consume when drinking is enough to be considered alcohol abuse. After reading Koren Zailckas' account of her drunken girlhood, I don't think my own experiences with alcohol make me an abuser. By her standards, I am a saint. I do not use alcohol to make me intimate with my lovers, nor do I depend upon it to give me the self-confidence I lack when sober.Smashed is the brutal story that traces Zailckas' first introduction to the dizzying effects of alcohol at the tender age of fourteen to the last time she drinks and blacks out, waking up the next morning in a strange apartment, not knowing where she is or how she got there. I found the first part of the book the most riveting, as it detailed the underage drinking portion of her life. I guess I found it so interesting because I never drank in high school and her descriptions could be used to describe every suburban town in America, including the one I went to high school in.
Zailckas writes well, although sometimes I find that she is trying too hard. Her message to young girls is obviously to not use alcohol as a means by which one deals with self-esteem or self-confidence issues which is good, sound advice.
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