Rating: 
Summary: Relevant, but only if...
Review: you're in your mid-50s, White, wealthy, live in posh suburbs on the coast, spent the last 30 years climbing (steadily) up the corporate ladder to VP status or are counting your millions as a sucessfull entrepreneur. If not (blue collar, high school grad, struggle to pay the bills every month, can barely afford health insurance), this tome will remind you of NOTHING in your life...because your 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s have been one blur of dead-end jobs, loss of purchasing power, long hours, low pay, etc.As authors far more talented and original than Sheehy observed 200 years ago, leisure is a function of wealth and privelege, and only the leisure class has the time or money to spend "contemplating" their lives on a by-the-minute basis..."passages" between the wunderkind preppie years to the grasping yuppie to the ostentatious wealthy world of illegal domestics, fine wine, expensive SUVs, private schools, and a flow of other lifestyle perks. BTW, this is hardly the rant of a repressed Marxist. MBA, college professor, US military officer, etc. I found Sheehy's work irritating over 20 years ago, and the previous 20 years of listening to whining yuppies echo her Deep Philosophy on Life has done little to change my opinion.
Rating: 
Summary: Disgruntled Need Not Apply
Review: Yuppie / Yippie, what's the difference? For starters, Yippies find fault with Yuppies, but rarely do you ever find it the other way around. Case in point, the respondent "Relevant, but only if...,", says the book is only relevant to quote "whining yuppies" among other derogator remarks and I for one find it truly sad that a person of their perspective could not find something of value in this diverse and respectful chronicle. As one other reviewer put it, "A perceptive reader would learn from this book, no matter their circumstances", a well though out comment. Who won't want to aspire to become a Yuppie, a young upwardly mobile professional person; someone under 40 who prospered during the 1980s & 1990s (as Princeton University so aptly defined it)? Perhaps a person of the opposite persuasion, by his or her own definition, someone who is easily irritated, conceivably someone whom has made bad decisions or someone whom habitually passes the blame. It is time to let go of your grudge against the world.
I do agree that there has been better, more talented writing, and it could be Sheely's work discounts or makes assumptions about how your lifestyle will develop. Nevertheless, painting a rosy picture shouldn't be considered a transgression. This book does have something to offer, and only a person with a predisposition towards conflict would not be able to use the information to promote wisdom in their own life
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