I'm 32, female, single, no kids, with a great job. I have no complaints but society says that my personal resume should look different. Should it? How much do we need companionship and offspring?

I feel so conflicted about this book. I really, really wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did.

Other times we simply have not had the practice of being selfless and self-serving yet. We might need to practice that more and more to make it more of a habit. Either way, relationships require teamwork and that is a skill that is improved over time. Jay’s advice: Set some goals that matter to you and work towards them. Whether their professional, personal, or social. Do the Math Jay starts off the “work” section of the book by introducing the idea of “identity capital,” which is the collection of skills, relationships, and professional resources we build up over our lives. (Erik Erikson) Sometimes it’s our personality that we need to work on when it comes to relationships . We need help finding balance with how sometimes our personality could be too meek or too boisterous. Or we may just need someone to point it out for us. Another issue I have with this book is saying how bad off thirtysomething and fortysomething people are. They're not all bad off. We can learn from older people's mistakes, but I don't think they should be berated for choosing to do things later in life. Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't. However, by using poor decisions of older people, Jay is emphasizing her point that it's better to start planning when you're young, which I kind of agree with. She crosses a line sometimes when she speaks about her older clients. I know she's trying to point out how later decisions affected them, but at the same time, it comes close to almost wagging her finger at them when they've already suffered enough.

Our “thirty-is-the-new-twenty” culture tells us the twentysomething years don’t matter. Some say they are an extended adolescence. Others call them an emerging adulthood. In The Defining Decade, Meg Jay argues that twentysomethings have been caught in a swirl of hype and misinformation, much of which has trivialized the most transformative time of our lives.

But I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, you're broke now (which I was in my twenties so I get it) and I'll be flush with cash later when I make it big (which maybe you will but maybe you won't) so this is something that is just going to have to wait. Jay highlights the difference between school and adults. School requires you to solve clear problems laid before you, adult life requires adapting and finding answers in uncertain situations.