At first I didn't think I was going to like this book. I wasn't drawn to a book about an entitled actress who wouldn't accept the help she didn't have to pay for. As the story went on and we got to know the characters better, I started to like the story better. Both of the women have issues in their pasts that have turned them into the women that they are today. This book had a phenomenal start and did some things very, very right. We follow Olivia Han, a therapist turned life coach to the stars who works to turn the lives of struggling stars around after the overdose death of her younger sister 13 years ago, and Chase London, a former child prodigy turned junkie actress who can't seem to stay out of jail or rehab. She wasn’t an expert, but she’d long been a mentor. She was going to talk to her readers as if they were her former students, who still ask for her advice over coffee. She was going to be open and honest with her own hard-won lessons and the experiences she’d gleaned from others. “I am not smarter than you. I am not wiser than you. I’m just going to tell you what I know,” she says. “It’s meant to be this very close narrative that ultimately feels like a companion walking this journey with the reader.” All around me, people are talking about crumbling care infrastructures and the loneliness that accompanies family care work. For the “sandwich generation,” adulthood has been marked by figuring out how to juggle the competing needs of their children and aging parents. Mutual aid became a practice not just for activist communities but for neighborhoods struggling with exploding housing and food prices, which acutely impacts younger adults.

There’s no manual to being an adult — one day you wake up expected to know whether bitcoins are a good investment and how to feed yourself three times a day. This is the one book you need to read if you’re ready to take up the challenge of becoming your true and vital adult self. It is filled with great stories of people just like you, told by a master storyteller. We need more adults in the world and it really is Your Turn.” I think I’d have a chapter on how you keep moving forward when you so deeply don’t feel like you can,” she said. “Which is a question that I think all of us have in one way or another had to grapple with over the last couple years.” I very much believe in the power of our personal stories to help others feel less alone and more seen and supported,” she says. “This isn’t an explication on adulting. This is like, ‘Hey reader, I’ve been there, you’re there now, let’s talk.’ ”

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But there is no hard and fast set of rules that adults must live by, she says, which is why she altered the definition of adult to be “the stage of life between childhood and death.” Through it all, the message about adulting remained the same: the goal was to get onto that traditional life path. The one you’re supposed to follow. Meet a partner, buy a home, start a family. All while nailing it at work, being an amazing friend and having the perfect wardrobe. Your Turn: How to Be an Adult” dives into financial topics that she — and most adults — wish they knew at an earlier age, like how to start a 401k and what compounding interest is. Lythcott-Haims also writes reminders about the little things that can make major impacts. The book is about Chase London, a young actress who very much has partied hard and is on a severe path of destruction. She enters rehabilitation and upon her discharge is set under the care of Olivia, a personal life coach. It is Olivia’s job to attempt to keep Chase on the straight and narrow, determined to ensure she is able to become insured to work on a film. There shouldn’t be a blanket rule about talking to strangers, she suggests. Parents can instead teach kids the skills to discern “the one creepy stranger out of the vast majority of humans who are perfectly fine” and how to “connect respectfully with a stranger,” she says.

I’m the latest person to try to tell this story. You’re the latest to listen. The reason we keep telling these stories is that all of us have to learn it to survive. Nobody before you knew how to do this, either. We’re all winging it, full of shit and fear. Sometimes I am still terrified, too. Cue the baby animal video. Key to the book is that “adulting”—dear grammar traditionalist, she goes there—isn’t reaching a milestone, it’s reaching and sustaining a mindset. Lythcott-Haims was 25, married and armed with degrees from two of the world’s most prestigious universities before she ever felt like she was doing more than playacting as a grown-up. I know you want to succeed at it. But you may have been misled about what that means. A successful life is not about getting into a certain school, or having a certain job or career, or about how much money you have. It’s not about perfection, making a singular noteworthy achievement, or having the most followers. People will hold these things out as the finish line for you to cross. But forget that. There is no finish line. Your work will feel most fulfilling if you’ve spent some time figuring out your unique interests and talents and you go out there and get better and better at doing that stuff. And much more important than the work you do is how you behave with humans. Research proves you’ll feel happiest—during life and at its end—if you find some small set of humans who know the real you and who love and support you no matter what, and whom you love and support in return. To you’re struggling to find fulfillment, deeply reflect on what you’re skilled at and what you love, she says. She suggests also asking yourself where you feel safe, connected and belonged.While the romances between Olivia/Spencer/Conrad and Chase/Zeke weren't actually annoying, glamorized, or obnoxious, they also didn't do much for me. I would have liked even more of an emphasis on Chase and Olivia's relationship and how they help each other out, as opposed to the male love interests being a primary source of their healing. It's true that Olivia needed to take risks and open herself up more, and that does include taking risks in relationships. And her history with Conrad added another dimension to the Marley plotline. But as far as Chase goes, I would have liked to see less of an emphasis on Zeke. I feel that the self-discoveries Chase made could have easily been made with Olivia, making Zeke a bit unnecessary in my eyes. Though to be honest, between Zeke, Conrad, and Spencer...they all felt a little too...goody goody? Just a little too perfect at times, apart from maybe Conrad, whose true colors shined darkly in the end. Her proactive advice shines “a very warm light” on young people who may be looking into the future with fear in their eyes, she says. She wants to show them there isn’t one path to becoming an adult, but rather “a wide-open landscape” to take advantage of, she says. Businesses such as hotels, car rental agencies and restaurants often require a credit card to hold reservations. A debit card won’t always do, unless it is one with a mastercard or visa logo on it.