Everyone has heard of a midlife crisis, who knows maybe you have even been through it or are going through it right now, but have you ever heard of a Quarter-Life Crisis?
Children nowadays are raised with the hopes and aspirations of their parents on their shoulders, and so when people often leave university or go into their first job they have a certain aim or goal in mind as to where they want to be in a few years time. However, this very rarely plays out.
Realistically no 20-something year old is going to have all of their career and family goals sorted before the big 3 0 roles around, that just doesn’t happen that often. But what is our motivation behind such goals? Quite often it’s our satisfaction!
We want to be satisfied, we want to have the world but not the worries and so when we hit 20-something and none of that is realised in comes the quarter life crisis.
Now if you are a bit older you’re probably thinking that it’s silly for people in their 20’s to have a crises because life is only just beginning, but this book is needed! So many people my age (20-something 🙂 ) are looking for satisfaction in the wrong places and when that satisfaction isn’t realise (which it never is in material things) then people can feel as if they are ‘broken’. Hence, I am very thankful for Rachel Jones and her book Is This It?
The book starts off with 31 reasons why you might need this book, and I’m going to be honest as say that I did laugh out loud at some of these… and that’s a little taster of the whole book. Jones is a great writer, easy to read and it’s as if she is narrating her book to you. Throughout the book she uses humour and writes as she talks (I imagine as I’ve never met her).
If you glance through the 31 reason why you need the book, then you’ll soon realise that everyone in their 20’s – 30’s should read it. Jones goes through the different feelings and situations that people can find themselves in, some of them are quite simple and normal whilst others are very difficult and painful.
This book was written with young people in mind who are walking the minefield of high expectations and an unrealistic view of what life should be. One of the things that I like most about this book is how Jones is so honest about her own life experiences and situation. When somebody writes a book and is as brutally honest as Jones is you can’t help but think that she has looked into the life of every 20-something year old and she just gets it.
This book touches on topics like a lack of satisfaction and missing home, hating your job and feeling lonely, friendships and relationships, singleness and marriage and the list goes on. Each chapter is written with honesty, care and a pastoral heart.
Jones is very practical and many of the chapters have points either to look out for, or things that you can do to help the reader focus on eternity instead of being sucked into the here and now. Jones brings a great knowledge of the Bible to the table and applies Scripture very pointedly and helpfully. There are so many great quotes from this book that I simply can’t put them all here, but if you get this book you’ll know what I mean. But if you’re thinking “I’m way over 20-something” and think that this book is irrelevant to you then you’re wrong, if you are looking ahead to your 20’s and 30’s, if you’ve just passed them, if you know someone who is in them then read this book!
It’s not ready for Christmas, but you can give this gift to people at any time of the year.
Jones adds a resource page at the back and says that she is just skimming the surfaces of some of these topics, and that resource page is an absolute gem!
Obviously a lot of work went into this book and I recommend that you buy it as soon as it hits the shelves, that you read it and buy others copies too. This book will help people take their eyes off of their situation and focus instead on Jesus.
Rating 4/5
Rachel Jones is the author of Is This It? and the award-winning Five Things to Pray series, and an editor at The Good Book Company. She leads Bible studies for young adults and helps teach kids at her church, Chessington Evangelical Church, in Surrey, UK. Rachel studied History at Manchester University before joining TGBC.
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