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| Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 304 reviews)
Sales Rank: 33781
Category: Book
Author: Alexandra Robbins
Publisher: Hyperion
Studio: Hyperion
Manufacturer: Hyperion
Label: Hyperion
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0786888598
Dewey Decimal Number: 378.19856
EAN: 9780786888597
ASIN: 0786888598
Publication Date: July 2005
Release Date: July 6, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Now in paperback, the New York Times bestseller-with over 91,000 copies in print-that takes you behind closed doors to see what really goes on in America's sororities ver wonder what sorority life is really like? In Pledged, bestselling author Alexandra Robbins goes undercover to expose the dark side of collegiate sisterhood-the psychological abuse, hazing rituals, and widespread body image disorders-while at the same time introducing us to many of the intelligent, successful women within its ranks. The result is a compelling sociological exploration of the powerful influence that these organizations wield over young women today. With its fly-on-the-wall voyeurism and remarkable insight, Pledged paints a sharp-eyed portrait of the intriguing and paradoxical world of modern-day sororities.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 299 more reviews...
 really boring book September 3, 2008
I couldn't finish this book. I found it very difficult to keep my interest. I was never really shocked by anything presented, and could not have cared less about the characters. I think we all know sororities do both good and bad things. It's all politics in the end.
 Inside sorority life August 20, 2008
In this expose into sorority life, Robbins went undercover as an undergraduate to rush, and ultimately join, a sorority. What she found was disturbing, to say the least. She experienced an alcohol soaked, catfight-intensive life, in which young women constantly competed with one another for male attention. What is more surprising, though, is that so many of the young women in sororities seemed to be miserable. Clearly, Robbins is very, very critical of the sororities she followed in this book. That said, she's much less critical of the individual sisters. Indeed, she stresses the promising future and intelligence these women have apart from their sororities. In completing her study, Robbins surveyed both traditionally white and traditionally African-American sororities. She concludes that historically black sororities have stayed far closer to the sororities' purported missions of sisterhood, philanthropy, and scholarship than have majority-white sororities. Still, she finds problems and racism in both Overall, Pledged was a fascinating read that seemed to accomplish its goal of sympathizing with sorority sisters, while excoriating the larger organizations. Robbins ends her work with some suggestions for improving sorority life, such as delaying rush until after the freshman year so that students can experience more of college life before they decide if they want to join the Greek system. Whether these would change much, I'm not so sure, but I found this book interesting, and was especially taken with the stories of the four young women Robbins followed over the course of a year.
 Good, but a memoir would be better. August 5, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I was in a sorority and Pledged brought many good memories for me. I'm still best friends with three of my sisters, so I think it's important for the reader not to believe all the stereotypes this book reveals. My major complaint with Pledged is that it's too long and the storyline seems to be all over the place. Instead of chronologically following the different lives of the girl, I think the author should have just focused on one girl or one group of girls at a time. This would have made it easier for me to remember who did what and this also would have made it easier to see how the individual girls changed in reaction to the various problems they encountered. My other criticism is that I had a hard time accepting the truth value of some of the stories because the author herself was not a member of these sororities nor was she ever actually in a sorority. That's kind of like a journalist explaining to you what it "feels" like to be a doctor. She can tag along and watch things from a distance, but she's never really going to understand what it means to be something she's not. I wish someone would write another book about sorority life in the memoir form kind of like Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood. There are two good fraternity memoirs called COLLEGE LIFE EXTREME: Lies, Sex, Drugs and Violenceand Goat: A Memoir that really give you a sense of what Greek Life can be like from the perspective of fratboys. A memoir written by a real sorority girl would be much more engrossing than the work of a journalist, but even if someone does write a book like this, I think it's silly to believe that there is some uniform type of Greek experience. The reality is every college is different and their Greek systems will be different too.
Good concept that needs some work... July 6, 2008
Because my sorority experience was somewhat unorthodox, I was interested to read this book that claimed to offer an "unbiased, informational, well-researched" look at the sororities and sorority women of today. In the end, while I agreed with many of the observations made by Ms. Robbins and even saw some parallels to my experience, I believe she focused too much on one school and only two of the sororities there, as well as giving too much page time to sororities in the deep south. Greek life was a huge part of my University, as four sororities were founded on my campus and we had nine national sororities and I think six national fraternities at a school of only [approximately] 4500 people. I'm sure much of what Ms. Robbins witnessed took place in some of our chapters, but the fact remains that there are many different types of sororities, even among the same national chapters, and I feel that she would be smart to do more in-depth studies of other sororities at other schools in other areas of the country in order to get a more "true" picture of what sorority life is like.
 This book is trash July 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was totally offended by this book. I was in a sorority in college from '88 to '91. I can tell you it was NOTHING like the one in the book. Many of my friends, past and present, were in sororities and had the same experience that I did. I still keep up with some of my sisters from college. I met my husband through one of my pledge sisters. My sorority gave me contacts when I graduated college to find a job. I would be a fool to think some of the things that went on in this book don't happen- drinking, hazing, stealing boyfriends, etc. But not to the degree that Robbins' picture paints! If you were not in a sorority, PLEASE don't think this is how Greek life really is. If you were Greek or plan to go through rush, ignore what is said in this book. I can tell you first hand that this is not the way Greek life usually is.
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