Book Review: Dirty Rush by Taylor Bell

Dirty Rush by Taylor Bell
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Gallery Books (January 13, 2015)

The creative minds behind the best-selling White Girl Problems are back with an all-new book, described as being the first true glimpse of "real" sorority life in all it's fucked up glory.  Co-creators Tanner and David Olivier Cohen have manged to write another hit book.

Rebecca Martinson, responsible for a very harsh email, pens the foreword, authenticating the book's depiction of what it means by "going Greek."  Her original email is included in the book.

To put it lightly, if Mean Girls were set in a college sorority instead of in high school, it would be this book.  Tom Rothman’s TriStar has optioned the film rights with Brownstone Productions’ Elizabeth Banks & Max Handelman set to produce.

Author Taylor Bell gives us an account of her freshman year at Central Delaware University and gives us an unfiltered look at what goes on behind closed doors in Greek Life.  The Beta Zeta legacy has no interest in becoming the fifth member of her family to pledge the sorority but the BZ sisters aren't about to let her not join.  The sisters might drink, act crazy-cool, and come off as hilariously bitchy but they somehow are able to lure her in to the jacked-up world with one party after another.

She finds a way to deal with the fast-food ban and even some of the other rules imposed on her by Collette Winter but still finds herself having the time of her life.  Some of the BZ sisters turn out to be true friends.

During winter break, Taylor finds out what really happened to her sister in college and that paves the way for the final third of the book, where things start to become really interesting.  A sex tape is leaked and the girl looks like Taylor and shit--go figure--hits the fan.  Her boyfriend doesn't have her back.  Collette wants her to resign.  Taylor has to find a way to survive the scandal and she soon finds out which of her sisters are her true friends.

I'll be honest.  This book isn't really something that I would normally read but when I saw that Elizabeth Banks was set to produce a film adaption and the Mean Girls comparisons, I knew that I had to give it a chance.  I'm glad I did because it was one of those books that you just can't put down.  Call it a guilty pleasure but what Cohens did here is genius.