Customer Reviews

Drink to the Lasses

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Mary Beth Ellis writes a poignant and hysterical tribute to Saint Mary's/Notre Dame College life-- in the late 90's--applicable to all SMC Chicks and Domers. A must read that makes you laugh until you cry. Buy it and pass it on to your former SMC roomies and friends.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and wished it wouldn't end! As a SMC almuna approaching my 10-year reunion (gasp!), I couldn't have read this book at a better time. Not only did Mary Beth capture the unique SMC/ND college experience (very humorously, I might add!), but she captured the wide-eyed, away-from-home-for-the-first-time wonder of college/young adult life. Boys, dances, dining halls, friends, professors, exams, self-esteem, growing up Catholic, and more--it's all in here, spoken from a perspective I believe most readers will identify with on some level. Whether you're looking back, looking ahead, or going through it for the first time, you'll have fun reading this book.

I'm going to make sure all of my friends--not just the SMCs and Domers-- read Drink to the Lasses...and I look forward to reading more from Mary Beth Ellis!

Mary Beth Ellis' witty writing style made this a 2-day read for me--it's the first book I've finished in 9 months (since my 1st child was born!). I didn't want to put the book down! I made my husband read it too, and he was laughing out loud! It's a well-written and hysterically honest look at college life that I think anyone who has ever been to college, or wants to go, would enjoy. I loved it!

"DTTL' = Drink To The Lasses, Mary Beth Ellis; Cold Tree Press (2009)

The world of American horse racing (& betting) has been forever populated with just about almost everyone born without a sense of humor.

I mean, they wouldn't get the point of a joke - even if they had been the author of it.

So when the brand-new & refreshing Paulick Report cranked up in 2008 & started covering horse racing with verve, I was amazed to find Mary Beth's hilarious "coverage" of the Triple Crown Races (Kentucky Derby, etc.) prominently featured, via the link to her site, "Blond Champagne."

We needed someone to come along & demolish former jockey & racing analyst Gary Stevens's intergalactic, mega-narcissism. She did it!

Then, we needed a top-shelf debut memoir written by a workaholic humorist who writes wickedly & who had spent time in college with jaded ladies cleaning their ROTC rifles in dorm rooms. Done.

Personally, I needed a fresh source of restorative comedy, in the aftermath of a failed romance with Barbara's Tuchman's presumed can't-miss "The Guns of August."

Mary Beth, to the rescue, again, with "Drink To The Lasses"!

It takes perseverance & then some to keep going when your destiny is to write & the world could not care less. Even presumably logical allies can be cruel.

By chance, before reading Lasses, I had seen "Parliament of Whores" on the bookshelf & wondered if Ellis would be as funny as P.J. O'Rourke.

Then I found out that O'Rourke himself - probably drunk, in the aftermath of a paid dullard's speech at Notre Dame, followed by a cash bar free-for-all - after she had asked him for advice on how to become a writer, had callously advised her to go to dental school.

It is indeed a small world, if the paths of talented humorists of different generations can so miraculously intersect, but O'Rourke had to go & prove that he is even smaller than that.

At any rate, this book cannot be more highly recommended. Buy dozens of them.

MB as a freshman, merely by writing a letter of appreciation, somehow ended up on it-is-it-isn't a date (her first ever) with, of all people, a college human athletic mascot, the Notre Dame Leprechaun.

Nothing came of it; they remained friends (which ensures that someday, should that day arrive, MB's children will grow to an adult height). And eventually, he "vanished into a Golden Dome sort of Camelot mist, for I never heard of him again."

We now might know where he is. From the New York Post, July 2nd, 2010:

"Cops in Boulder, Colorado, were flooded with calls that a leprechaun was on the loose.

"The callers said a man dressed in leprechaun garb was spotted in a parking lot running between cars & making obscene gestures.

"Cops found no one matching that description."

* * *

Say, what happens if this writing thing, God forbid, doesn't work out?

She'll never relax; her permanent drive to achieve will continue.

Remembering that stellar career advice from a respected elder, she'll then enroll in dental school, obtain her degree, & open a practice.

And the unsuspecting P.J. O'Rourke - now retired & daylighting on autumn Saturday afternoons as the AARP Notre Dame Leprechaun - will be escorted to her chair.

"Open Wide!"

Ah, St. Mary's College. The name conjures up myriad images of my school days, spent in academic splendor amongst the tree-lined avenue, the goose-lined lake, and (in winter months, or late at night) the majestic underground steam tunnels. Those steam tunnels have long since been sealed off forever from students. But readers can revisit the St. Mary's of a decade ago in Mary Beth Ellis's book Drink to the Lasses: Notes From a Women's College Womb (Cold Tree Press).

Make no mistake: Drink to the Lasses is no misty-eyed nostalgia. Neither is it a collection of spring break stories that would horrify even the most hardened of college-student parents, nor a treatise on the relationship between St. Mary's and its famous green-wearing "brother" school. The Leprechaun and his ilk do come up as Mary Beth narrates her personal tale of campus life from freshman year to graduation. She does not shy away from describing her struggles with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, but this is not a how-I overcame-my-disease story.

Instead, Drink to the Lasses is an unrelentingly funny read that skillfully combines all of the above. Mary Beth Ellis honed her comedic skills in her years working on the St. Mary's/Notre Dame/Holy Cross newspaper The Observer. Since then, she's further refined her humor with her blog [...]. In Drink to the Lasses she focuses her comedy beam on subjects such as going to dances with various blind dates, the dangers of room selection, and the dissection of a fetal pig.

Current and former SMC Chicks and Domers will enjoy this book, as will their parents, and members of the extended St. Mary's and Notre Dame family. So will anyone who's about to go off to college for the first time; read this book and be warned. Drink to the Lasses is also recommended for anyone who wants to laugh along with a witty peek into the lives of college women.

Mary Beth Ellis grabs the gold ring on this one. If you want to laugh, go for the "...Lasses..." This girl's got talent. Whether you went to SMC, ND or just need to split a side or two, get it!

Drink to the Lasses was hilarious! There were points where I was doubled over laughing, and narrowly escaped killing myself on a treadmill because of it. The book is even better than her brilliantly funny blog and highly entertaining MSNBC articles.
I easily fell into Ellis' college world, probably faster than most because I also attend a woman's college in Indiana. The similarities between SMC and SMWC are almost freaky, and Ellis' experiences can easily be identified with. This is an awesome and totally un-boring college memoir!

As a SMC chick myself (1990) I really had a great time reading this book. The SYR dances, the tunnels, roommates, etc. really brought me back to those days of college. Fun, fun book about college life!