Books › How to be a person
How to be a person
272 pages
A profane, hilarious, and surprisingly practical survival guide for the messy transition into adulthood.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting in a dive bar at 2 AM with your coolest, most unapologetic older sibling who is determined to save you from your own naiveté. The pace is brisk and punchy, delivering bite-sized chunks of blunt wisdom wrapped in layers of cynical humor and genuine care. It cultivates a boisterous, unfiltered mood, stripping away the sanitized platitudes of traditional advice manuals in favor of gritty, street-smart reality. The prose is fiercely conversational and profane, tackling everything from laundry to sexual liberation with the same wry, deadpan delivery. It is an absolute delight for young adults, college students, or anyone who appreciates harm-reduction and sex-positive guidance delivered with a heavy dose of irreverent wit.
- Mood
- chaotic good
- gritty
- boisterous
- unfiltered
- Tone
- irreverent
- blunt
- satirical
- wry
- cynical yet caring
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- navigating early adulthood · sexual liberation · harm reduction · urban survival · rebellion against convention
- The writing
- Punchy, profane, and fiercely conversational, reading like a late-night rant from your coolest, most intimidating older sibling.
- The arc
- Moves from overwhelming collegiate chaos to a grounded, street-smart sense of self-assurance.
- Who it's for
- Young adults and college students looking for no-bullshit, sex-positive advice that doesn't talk down to them.
Content notes
- substance use
- explicit sexual content
- profanity
- binge drinking
About the book
"Most colleges provide a pile of orientation materials, but they're basically useless. Feel free to throw all that away. This guide from the writers and editors of The Stranger has the information you will actually need that no one else will tell you--for college and for the rest of your existence--including: which majors to avoid, how to not get a STD, everything there is to know about philosophy (in a single paragraph!), what the music you like says about you, how to turn a crush into something more, how to come out (should you happen to be gay), how to binge drink and not die, how do laundry, how to do drugs (and which ones you should never do), good manners, tips on flirting with film nerds, how to write a great sentence, and a state-by-state guide to the U.S. of A. It's all here, along with Dan Savage's very best advice about sex and love. Hi!"--
Description from Open Library.
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