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lastpaige111's review against another edition
4.0
Very well written account of finding her way out of emptiness and into the fullness of sober living.
suvata's review against another edition
5.0
I've read many "addiction memoirs" in the past but none can hold a candle to Blackout by Sarah Hepola. The book chronicles her alcohol consumption beginning at the age of seven through her full-fledged, blackout inducing alcoholism in her 20s and 30s.
What got me about this book is that reading it felt like Sarah was my best friend telling me her story. Actually it felt more like I had lived it with her and she was rehashing the stories with me. Somehow it seemed like I was not merely an observer but a participant in her life. I laughed at the drunken antics that were so enduring in the beginning and cried after her blackouts when she tried to make sense of what she had done and where she had been. Finally, I applauded when she entered into her recovery--kicking and screaming as it were.
I really don't know what else to say about this book other than that it spoke to me on a deep level. It's funny. It's sad. It's riveting. It's entertaining. You should read it!
Check out this author interview at
http://thelitupshow.com/episode-14-sarah-hepola-on-vulnerability-blackout-drinking-and-more/
What got me about this book is that reading it felt like Sarah was my best friend telling me her story. Actually it felt more like I had lived it with her and she was rehashing the stories with me. Somehow it seemed like I was not merely an observer but a participant in her life. I laughed at the drunken antics that were so enduring in the beginning and cried after her blackouts when she tried to make sense of what she had done and where she had been. Finally, I applauded when she entered into her recovery--kicking and screaming as it were.
I really don't know what else to say about this book other than that it spoke to me on a deep level. It's funny. It's sad. It's riveting. It's entertaining. You should read it!
Check out this author interview at
http://thelitupshow.com/episode-14-sarah-hepola-on-vulnerability-blackout-drinking-and-more/
maryhelena's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.5
icantcontroltheweather's review against another edition
5.0
I have 21 highlights from this book, so that’s already saying something
colleengeedrumm's review against another edition
5.0
What do I feel? (in italics)
How had I determined that not learning a skill was a position of power? (i.e. cooking and how women don't need to know this stuff anymore, like it was stenography)
I had held on to many things. But not myself. A mother was a good call to make before abandoning hope.
But if you smoke to much pot you get that Jamaican high. Everything turns to reggae. You stop learning and noticing. I stopped being an observer and became way too much of a participant.
The real problem is that I still fear my own talent is deficient. This isn't merely a problem for writers who drink; it's a problem for drinkers and writers, period. We are cursed by a gnawing fear that whatever we are-it's not good enough. What a powerful voodoo-to believe brilliance could be sipped or poured.
Toni Morrison - I want to feel what I feel. Even if it's not happiness. That is true strength. To want what you have, and not what someone else is holding.
Everybody worships. The only choice is what we get to worship. If not God/etc. anything else will eat you alive.
Effects of aging are a lot like the effects of drinking.
I was here once. I remember this. Writers build monuments to our former selves, our former lives, because we're always hoping to return to the past and master it somehow, find the missing puzzle piece that helps everything make sense.
How had I determined that not learning a skill was a position of power? (i.e. cooking and how women don't need to know this stuff anymore, like it was stenography)
I had held on to many things. But not myself. A mother was a good call to make before abandoning hope.
But if you smoke to much pot you get that Jamaican high. Everything turns to reggae. You stop learning and noticing. I stopped being an observer and became way too much of a participant.
The real problem is that I still fear my own talent is deficient. This isn't merely a problem for writers who drink; it's a problem for drinkers and writers, period. We are cursed by a gnawing fear that whatever we are-it's not good enough. What a powerful voodoo-to believe brilliance could be sipped or poured.
Toni Morrison - I want to feel what I feel. Even if it's not happiness. That is true strength. To want what you have, and not what someone else is holding.
Everybody worships. The only choice is what we get to worship. If not God/etc. anything else will eat you alive.
Effects of aging are a lot like the effects of drinking.
I was here once. I remember this. Writers build monuments to our former selves, our former lives, because we're always hoping to return to the past and master it somehow, find the missing puzzle piece that helps everything make sense.
jimmyjamesnickels's review against another edition
3.0
We remember the infamous " Cool Girl" rant from Gone Girl, yes? While initially sitting down to review this book, I had in my head that I wanted to say something about how the author comes across as very honest in a contrived way. Sarah Hepola really wants her readers to like her as she dishes about the details of her alcoholism...but more to the point, she desperately wants us to think she is cool for her exploits. And then it came to me, Sarah Hepola is a Cool Girl. Blackout is what really happens to Cool Girls in real life.
Hepola was a Gen Xer who road out the 90s and dot com bubble burst of the early double aughts as an alcoholic, and Blackout is her middle of the road attempt at a memoir about drinking and sobriety. And well...it's okay. Good not great, it has it's good moments and it's dull points but for the most part it's a fast and probably forgettable read. While the book is very short, it's very clear the author is a writer for online news article/blog posts because it has a very 'blog' feel to it in formatting and overall tone. It's almost too short, Hepola makes an interesting point about her life only to skip away from it in an ADHD fashion.
I found the tone of the book to be very weird. It seems she tries to maintain this jokey tone throughout, tossing in these weird asides or ba-dum-tis rimshot quips and one liners that were just strange. It's as if she can't decide whether she wants to give her book the full Chelsea Handler approach or to take matters seriously, so instead she takes this shaky and unconfident middle road which ends up feeling painfully self aware. She's a decent writer, but her unwillingness to either take herself seriously and stand by her story without dismissing herself with self deprecation makes the the book pretty lack luster.
Hepola started drinking at an unbelievably young age, getting buzzed off her parents' fridge beers when she was only seven or so (which I find somewhat mind blowing, the idea of a first grader getting white girl wasted on the regular) and was drinking steadily through her teenage years and beyond. The older Hepola gets, the more she drinks for social lubrication and the more she morphs into the Cool Girl archetype. Quoth Amy Dunne "They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be.” however in this case it wasn't just men that Hepola was trying to fool, but her group as a whole. She wanted desperately to be seen as cool, as non threatening and unchallenging so she drank to excess and routinely embarrassed herself via the titular black outs.
There are strong points in the book, and she makes some extremely valid points about how much drinking is ingrained in our culture as a social norm. And while the book feels honest with the embarrassing and sometimes strange things Hepola shares, it is very controlled and contrived. It feels inauthentic, I suppose, the fact she's still doing the Cool Girl schtick only now it's as the cynical and world weary recovering alcoholic.
Hepola was a Gen Xer who road out the 90s and dot com bubble burst of the early double aughts as an alcoholic, and Blackout is her middle of the road attempt at a memoir about drinking and sobriety. And well...it's okay. Good not great, it has it's good moments and it's dull points but for the most part it's a fast and probably forgettable read. While the book is very short, it's very clear the author is a writer for online news article/blog posts because it has a very 'blog' feel to it in formatting and overall tone. It's almost too short, Hepola makes an interesting point about her life only to skip away from it in an ADHD fashion.
I found the tone of the book to be very weird. It seems she tries to maintain this jokey tone throughout, tossing in these weird asides or ba-dum-tis rimshot quips and one liners that were just strange. It's as if she can't decide whether she wants to give her book the full Chelsea Handler approach or to take matters seriously, so instead she takes this shaky and unconfident middle road which ends up feeling painfully self aware. She's a decent writer, but her unwillingness to either take herself seriously and stand by her story without dismissing herself with self deprecation makes the the book pretty lack luster.
Hepola started drinking at an unbelievably young age, getting buzzed off her parents' fridge beers when she was only seven or so (which I find somewhat mind blowing, the idea of a first grader getting white girl wasted on the regular) and was drinking steadily through her teenage years and beyond. The older Hepola gets, the more she drinks for social lubrication and the more she morphs into the Cool Girl archetype. Quoth Amy Dunne "They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be.” however in this case it wasn't just men that Hepola was trying to fool, but her group as a whole. She wanted desperately to be seen as cool, as non threatening and unchallenging so she drank to excess and routinely embarrassed herself via the titular black outs.
There are strong points in the book, and she makes some extremely valid points about how much drinking is ingrained in our culture as a social norm. And while the book feels honest with the embarrassing and sometimes strange things Hepola shares, it is very controlled and contrived. It feels inauthentic, I suppose, the fact she's still doing the Cool Girl schtick only now it's as the cynical and world weary recovering alcoholic.