Since Wrecked is set exclusively on a college campus, alcohol is a common motif. Padian portrays almost every character, at some point, thinking about their relationship with alcohol or about how their peers are using alcohol. By including characters of different backgrounds, Padian also shows the diverse ways that young people on college campuses engage with alcohol.

One of the most important ways that alcohol shows up is through the descriptions of the night of Jenny’s rape, which takes place at Conundrum House, a place for “people who like to rage” (11). Led by Brandon Exley, who mixes “the evening’s ingredients” (56), the partygoers are able to get drunk very quickly. This typical scene is atypical for Jenny, who ends up feeling “swirly” after drinking at Conundrum (241).

The different actions and perspectives of the characters and how they engage with alcohol is critical both to the plot and to some of the central ideas of Wrecked, which borrows its title partly from a colloquial term used by young adults to describe what happens when they get very drunk. In fact, Jenny’s rape is in part due to the fact that the group of girls with whom she had attended the party left without her, as they “were all pretty wrecked” (155).