"Why is this moment happening in my life and what can I learn from it?" Michelle Douglas asked and answered this question almost every day for ten years, writing down one thing she learned each day from ages twenty-one to thirty-one. In these pages, she shares her experiences and learnings from the adventures that lie ahead for young adults--moving, working, loving, losing, quitting, building, and more, all while attempting to maintain a strong sense...

"Do you think Albert Einstein had his act together by his mid-20s? Think again. Would you assume style icon and humanitarian Audrey Hepburn's life was always as beautiful as she was? Far from it. At the other end of the spectrum is the revolutionary Steve Jobs, who was at the top of his game by age 25. But Jobs's beginnings were marked by his adoption, displacement, bullying, and then a rocky personal life. This absorbing book examines the trajectories...

"Frances flees a painful breakup and her claustrophobic childhood home in Manhattan, which has become more airless in the aftermath of two family announcements ... She seeks refuge at a Norwegian artist colony that's offered her a painting apprenticeship ... Yasha, an eighteen-year-old Russian immigrant raised in a bakery in Brighton Beach, is kneading bread in the shop's window when he sees his mother for the first time in a decade. As he gains a...

This epic novel follows six young people on their travels through Europe, serving as a guidebook, "loosely dressed up as fiction, " to quaint and colorful places and to the life-style of the rebellious young of the 1960's.

"There is a young adult mental health crisis in America. So many twentysomethings are struggling-especially with anxiety, depression, and substance use-yet, as a culture, we are not sure what to think or do about it. Perhaps, it is said, young adults are snowflakes who melt when life turns up the heat. Or maybe, some argue, they're triggered for no reason at all. Yet, even as we trivialize twentysomething struggles, we are quick to pathologize them...

"Back in 2008, Mark Bauerlein was a voice crying in the wilderness. As experts greeted the new generation of 'Digital Natives' with extravagant hopes for their high-tech future, he pegged them as the 'Dumbest Generation.' Today, their future doesn't look so bright, and their present is pretty grim. The twenty-somethings who spent their childhoods staring into a screen are lonely and purposeless, unfulfilled at work and at home. Many of them are even...

Seventeen-year-old Monika and nineteen-year-old Harry Lund meet in a cafe. They spend a happy summer together, and soon Monika discovers that she is pregnant. They marry, but Monika is bored with taking care of the baby and the responsibilities of married life. She begins an affair with a former lover and their marriage falls apart.

"When Amelia turned 12, she began growing pearls. Every month, a crop of beautiful pearls bursts from the skin on her back. Her mother, Denise, believes her daughter is blessed, and sells the pearls to put food on the table. Amelia sees her condition as a curse. As the pearls form, her body aches and her skin grows feverish. The harvest of pearls brings temporary relief from the pain, but leaves her back marred by scars. Denise hides Amelia away from...