All I Know Now: Wonderings and Advice on Making Friends, Making Mistakes, Falling In (and Out of) Love, and Other Adventures in Growing Up Hopefully
Carrie Hope Fletcher. The Experiment (Workman, dist.), $16.95 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-61519-294-6
Fletcher, a British actress and host of the YouTube channel It's Way Past My Bedtime, debuts with what she calls "the manual I yearned for when I was a teenager." Her own black-and-white line illustrations are interspersed throughout%E2%80%94the kinds of doodles one might see in the margins of a student's notebook. Dividing the book into eight "acts" (with titles like "How to Get Your Heart Broken Only Just a Little Bit"), Fletcher discusses how to navigate social and home life, school, professional goals, and relationships, bolstered by examples from her own life; for example, after jumping between relationships, afraid to be alone, she spent much of a year single in an effort to become more independent. Fletcher openly addresses the ebbs and flows of adolescence, pursuing goals, and sometimes letting go of them: "If you decide to change those dreams after having wanted them for so long, it doesn't make you a failure. It makes you smart, realistic and above all honest with yourself." Ages 12%E2%80%93up. Agent: Hannah Ferguson, Hardman and Swainson Literary Agency. (Sept.)
Details
Reviewed on: 09/07/2015
Genre: Children's
Downloadable Audio - 978-1-4423-9628-9
Open Ebook - 352 pages - 978-1-61519-295-3