You’re about to read some things you will not be taught in school! It would be my honor to help you grab life by the horns, and I’d love to help you learn how to do that in easy, manageable ways - before the stresses pile up and things become more difficult to change.

There are forever claims that certain life skills should be taught in school and no matter how often the curriculum changes, some topics just don’t make the cut. 88 Life-Changing High School Hacks (A Sur-Thrival Guide™): Optimize the Teen Years, Upgrade Your Life Skills FAST, and Master Adulting Before You Graduate by Derek T Freeman is a passionate insight into some key life lessons to be learned sooner rather than later if one is to survive and thrive as an adult. A quick scan of the contents might have you scratching your head and wondering if some of the items really are essential ‘hacks’. They are! Although the content list looks a little messy in its alignment, the key takeaway from it is to take note of the sections, and more importantly, hack numbers you’ll want to return to again and again.

The book comprises 8 easily identifiable sections. Each starts with a quote that seems loosely related, until Freeman breaks it down, resulting in an aha! moment. Just these introductory segments alone are enough to trust in what the author has to purport. Quotes are dotted throughout the book to break up the longer sections and further exemplify the topic too. As for the actual hacks, each of them is numbered to make it easy to pinpoint and return to. Over the course of the book, you’ll read snippets of advice on how to handle your money, health, relationship, general approach to school/work, and then some, which to many will seem like common sense, but it’s good to remember that sense isn’t always common. For many this book will be a treasure.

Although marketed as a book for high schoolers, do not less this fool you. There are lessons in here that would suit mature middle schoolers, as well as adults that are yet to sharpen these tools that should be in everyone’s toolbox. Evidenced with experience, told with logic, and sprinkled with occasional humor, the book reads like a wise old self’s letter to their younger self (minus the top and tail, but with lots of love and care sprinkled throughout). The conversational air makes for very light reading, and the overall language is easy to digest. This is probably why you can tolerate the couple of shoutouts to read the rest of the series, write a review, and generally just be thankful to Freeman.

This is a book you’ll carry with you a while before you pass it on to share the knowledge with someone else who needs a helping hand in getting ahead.