BOOK REVIEW: The Quarter Life Crisis.
It’s been awhile since I’ve written a book review, because I have been unable to read anything non-school related since the summer. I was able to read this book over the past few days in between the hussle and bussle of the holidays.
The Quarterlife Crisis about the period after university graduation where career, love, friends, family and identity go through a rapid change developing into adulthood. It uses interviews from more than one hundred twentysomethings to identify the phenomenon and how to survive it.
The book is a little dated as the authors state: “One reason today’s twentysomethings may feel so alone could be that it is so difficult to lump them together as a group. They do not have a strong, collectively shared historical moment that helped to define them and continues to shape their identity” (12). This is clearly different now after 9/11 but the book is still relevant to today’s twentysomethings.
A strong point of the book is the long quotations from the interviewees. Since a large section of an interview is used, the reader can see that the words are not taken out of context. In academic work this is discouraged, but in this book, it is refreshing to read the words of fellow twentysomethings who share their personal experiences.
A weakness of the book was lack of satisfaction I got from it. A part of me felt in denial saying, ‘that won’t be me’ or ‘I’m more prepared-ambitious-mature-intelligent than these people’. I guess I got annoyed with some of the twentysomethings interviewed who were having a difficult time adjusting to not being able to party all night or have afternoon naps.
This book does remind me of the Quarter-Life Crisis email that went around in first year. I definitely identified with it then, but I didn’t identify with the book so much.
I still would recommend this book to any twentysomething who is in University, recently graduate or been in the workforce for a few years. I would recommend reading it before the alleged crisis occurs.
The Quarterlife Crisis about the period after university graduation where career, love, friends, family and identity go through a rapid change developing into adulthood. It uses interviews from more than one hundred twentysomethings to identify the phenomenon and how to survive it.
The book is a little dated as the authors state: “One reason today’s twentysomethings may feel so alone could be that it is so difficult to lump them together as a group. They do not have a strong, collectively shared historical moment that helped to define them and continues to shape their identity” (12). This is clearly different now after 9/11 but the book is still relevant to today’s twentysomethings.
A strong point of the book is the long quotations from the interviewees. Since a large section of an interview is used, the reader can see that the words are not taken out of context. In academic work this is discouraged, but in this book, it is refreshing to read the words of fellow twentysomethings who share their personal experiences.
A weakness of the book was lack of satisfaction I got from it. A part of me felt in denial saying, ‘that won’t be me’ or ‘I’m more prepared-ambitious-mature-intelligent than these people’. I guess I got annoyed with some of the twentysomethings interviewed who were having a difficult time adjusting to not being able to party all night or have afternoon naps.
This book does remind me of the Quarter-Life Crisis email that went around in first year. I definitely identified with it then, but I didn’t identify with the book so much.
I still would recommend this book to any twentysomething who is in University, recently graduate or been in the workforce for a few years. I would recommend reading it before the alleged crisis occurs.
posted by Spitfire at 6:43 PM
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