Pledged

The Secret Life of Sororities

By: Alexandra Robbins

Narrated by: Alexandra Robbins

Alexandra Robbins wanted to find out if the stereotypes about sorority girls were actually true, so she spent a year with a group of girls in a typical sorority. The sordid behavior of sorority girls exceeded her worst expectations - drugs, psychological abuse, extreme promiscuity, racism, violence, and rampant eating disorders are just a few of the problems. But even more surprising was the fact that these abuses were inflicted and endured by intelligent, successful, and attractive women. Why is the desire to belong to a sorority so powerful that women are willing to engage in this type of behavior - especially when the women involved are supposed to be considered 'sisters'? What definition of sisterhood do many women embrace? Pledged combines a sharp-eyed narrative with extensive reporting and the fly-on-the-wall voyeurism of reality shows to provide the answer.

©2011 Alexandra Robbins (P)2015 Hachette Audio

Biased

I thought her approach to this book was extremely biased. While there certainly were truths in some of the examples she gave, there were very few positives to counterbalance the negatives. This is in contrast to the book that she wrote called Fraternity, which contrasts two fraternities with very different cultures and leadership models, which I found interesting and informative. In Pledged, it was not only the examples and scenarios she wrote about, but the literary style she uses to make even getting a manicure sound self serving and shallow. My personal experience as a sorority member in my college years at the University of Washington and now as an advisor is that my membership gave me life long friends, tools to be successful in the working world and now the fulfillment of giving back and mentoring young women. I would also like to state that my sorority has a collegian membership that consists of 40% women of color. Our alumnae and our members are proud to be known for our diversity and of the philanthropic work we do in our community.

I finished this in days!

A great 360 degree view of sororities. I enjoyed the story telling piece mixed together with the informative piece. I truly enjoyed reading this.

So interesting!

I'm decades out of college, and was never part of the Greek system, but it's fascinating to learn about!

fantastic listen!

loved this book. informative and fact filled, it gives a genuine and unbiased peek into the secret lives of campus Greeks! A must read for any college bound girl!

Interesting story, weird performance

Overall I found this book pretty compelling, but the reader paced things in such a way that there were long pauses midsentence and no pauses at all between chapters - it was hard to tell what was a new thought and what was just strangely performed.

Insightful

I had no idea what sororities were all about. This book dives into the lives, lifestyles and secrets of what life is like in a sorority. I found it to be very informative.

Interested in the story of the young women but not the essay

This book was a mix of storytelling and essay writing. The part with the story about the young women’s experiences was good, but really cliche and nothing new. The part where the author goes into full essay mode are unbearable because it was so repetitive. The essay parts could use some more actual research because it was sparse yet tried too hard.