No other book has called me to accept my experience of adulthood like this one. Closest a book has previously come was Generation X by Douglas Coupland, but this really captures the 30-something millennial experience of navigating what I think we are all told is adulthood. And I’ll be pretty honest: I’d hesitate to call myself a “barely functional adult” as I do have a well-paying job I like, a partner, a cat, house, all the markers of a fully functional adulthood (except the kids). But this author has a BOOK, and had (has?) a job at GOOGLE. And that’s why I loved this book. I know a lot of millennials in different places in life, but we all compare ourselves against this arbitrary markerpost of a Boomer adulthood that we’ve been taught to glorify since childhood, and I think that’s why we all feel barely functional.

This book is an anthology of essays, illustrated with the adorable humanoid bubble that Ng became famous for online. The essays, while framed around stories of her own life, are written to be applicable to anybody reading the stories. They are lessons she learned and are now sharing so that we can all learn our own lessons from them. Also, each essay is a perfect length. They aren’t short nor long, but a great length for tucking into here and there, long enough to unwind, but short enough to fit into busy, barely functional adult lives. This is a book you can pick up and put down over and over again.

Whether it was a story about impostor syndrome, making friends as an adult (and introvert), going to therapy, getting a job, or changing jobs, I connected with Meichi’s stories. I found myself laughing, groaning, and staring into space as I wrestled with the understanding that “its not just me???”. 

There’s no reason not to read this book. Whether you are a boomer, Gen X, millennial, or Gen Z, you will find this book funny. The stories are just the right length for readers of all types, and packed with self-aware comedy aimed at the sad little rat race we’ve put ourselves through, and what it means to think we are losing when everybody else is as lost in the maze as we are, even if we are in different places in it.