ashleysimon's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.75
ktmaine42's review against another edition
4.0
I'm not a big drinker, so parts were tough to relate to, but interesting opinions and ideas. Always down to learn more about health & wellness!
rrickman33's review against another edition
2.0
I really enjoyed the dive this book did into Alcoholics Anonymous and when Whitaker initially did a commentary on how society targets women for drinking. But after that it went down hill fast. Chapter two she uses wikipedia to explain what ethanol is... girl. As someone with a degree in chemistry I CANNOT accept this i'm sorry you could have cited 100 articles that scientifically describe ethanol and its metabolic pathways.
So many sentences were making claims and had no citations to them. I know this isn't a deal breaker for everyone but as a doctoral student I do not trust anything that is not cited and so much of this book was not. I can't give this book more than 2 stars for the science alone and i'm not sorry.
But back to the context of the book. I wanted more on the societal influences and marketing and laws that are encouraging women to drink but instead we get a ton of anecdotal evidence about addition and drinking through Whitaker's eyes. It's not bad it's just not what I was expecting and wanted from this book. Also, so many of the ways Whitaker says to combat addiction require a ton of money and I really don't see this book being able to be applied to someone struggling to make ends meet. So definitely don't read if you don't have money to spend on self-care/childcare things.
I'm glad I read it but would have enjoyed it more with better science and less anecdotal evidence.
So many sentences were making claims and had no citations to them. I know this isn't a deal breaker for everyone but as a doctoral student I do not trust anything that is not cited and so much of this book was not. I can't give this book more than 2 stars for the science alone and i'm not sorry.
But back to the context of the book. I wanted more on the societal influences and marketing and laws that are encouraging women to drink but instead we get a ton of anecdotal evidence about addition and drinking through Whitaker's eyes. It's not bad it's just not what I was expecting and wanted from this book. Also, so many of the ways Whitaker says to combat addiction require a ton of money and I really don't see this book being able to be applied to someone struggling to make ends meet. So definitely don't read if you don't have money to spend on self-care/childcare things.
I'm glad I read it but would have enjoyed it more with better science and less anecdotal evidence.
wulnerable's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
maggienolin's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Rape, and Eating disorder
ohdeeawn's review against another edition
2.0
hmmm. the beginning of this book was great. talked a lot about the culture of drinking + the role of patriarchy and capitalism in normalizing (problematic) drinking behaviors. I’m not a big drinker, so I didn’t think I was the audience for this book. But the author raised some great points about the cumulative harm of drinking (no matter how frequent) and how the alcohol industry wields its power to conceal data showing the negative health effects of drinking — a tactic that was also used by Big Tobacco. Other comparisons are made to Big Tobacco which I appreciated as a public health specialist.
Needless to say, I was hoping for more of this ^^^ …. but the latter 60% of the book is mostly “woo woo” self-help stuff, which isn’t my favorite. I zoned out for most of it. also, I noticed that the author would exclude important details in an attempt to make her points more salient. it was also VERY repetitive. anywho, I would still recommend this book to anyone interested in seeking unique perspectives on alcohol and addiction and/or are sober curious. hopefully I can find a book that dives a bit deeper into the alcohol industry itself.
Needless to say, I was hoping for more of this ^^^ …. but the latter 60% of the book is mostly “woo woo” self-help stuff, which isn’t my favorite. I zoned out for most of it. also, I noticed that the author would exclude important details in an attempt to make her points more salient. it was also VERY repetitive. anywho, I would still recommend this book to anyone interested in seeking unique perspectives on alcohol and addiction and/or are sober curious. hopefully I can find a book that dives a bit deeper into the alcohol industry itself.