My Misspent Youth: Essays

Maybe you once found yourself in the dimming light of your twenties. And maybe someone handed you a copy of the book My Misspent Youth and maybe you thought, Finally, someone has written exactly how I feel. New York Magazine

An empathetic reporter and a provocative autobiographer ... I finished it in a single afternoon, mesmerized and sputtering. Caleb Crain, The Nation

Throughout this book, there are a surprising number of moments when your jaw just drops in amazement at what [Daum is] saying. Even when she's being funny, her writing has a clarity and intensity that just makes you feel awake. Ira Glass

Meghan Daum is not an eccentric exhibitionist or a self-indulgent memoirist. Her world is suburban New Jersey girlhood, Vassar, publishing, and the disillusionment that results when the reality of one's life falls short of expectations. Daum approaches the first lesson of adulthood--that the prosaic will intrude on the fantastic every time--without ever dissolving into cynicism. The New York Times Book Review

People I know still talk about Meghan Daum's 2001 debut essay collection, My Misspent Youth. Nobody writing about her generation was more incisive or entertaining than she. Sigrid Nunez

Maybe you once found yourself in the dimming light of your twenties. And maybe someone handed you a copy of the book My Misspent Youth and maybe you thought, Finally, someone has written exactly how I feel. New York Magazine

An empathetic reporter and a provocative autobiographer ... I finished it in a single afternoon, mesmerized and sputtering. Caleb Crain, The Nation

Throughout this book, there are a surprising number of moments when your jaw just drops in amazement at what [Daum is] saying. Even when she's being funny, her writing has a clarity and intensity that just makes you feel awake. Ira Glass

Meghan Daum is not an eccentric exhibitionist or a self-indulgent memoirist. Her world is suburban New Jersey girlhood, Vassar, publishing, and the disillusionment that results when the reality of one's life falls short of expectations. Daum approaches the first lesson of adulthood--that the prosaic will intrude on the fantastic every time--without ever dissolving into cynicism. The New York Times Book Review

People I know still talk about Meghan Daum's 2001 debut essay collection, My Misspent Youth. Nobody writing about her generation was more incisive or entertaining than she. Sigrid Nunez

Maybe you once found yourself in the dimming light of your twenties. And maybe someone handed you a copy of the book My Misspent Youth and maybe you thought, Finally, someone has written exactly how I feel. --New York Magazine

An empathetic reporter and a provocative autobiographer ... I finished it in a single afternoon, mesmerized and sputtering. --Caleb Crain, The Nation

Throughout this book, there are a surprising number of moments when your jaw just drops in amazement at what [Daum is] saying. Even when she's being funny, her writing has a clarity and intensity that just makes you feel awake. --Ira Glass

Meghan Daum is not an eccentric exhibitionist or a self-indulgent memoirist. Her world is suburban New Jersey girlhood, Vassar, publishing, and the disillusionment that results when the reality of one's life falls short of expectations. Daum approaches the first lesson of adulthood--that the prosaic will intrude on the fantastic every time--without ever dissolving into cynicism. --The New York Times Book Review

People I know still talk about Meghan Daum's 2001 debut essay collection, My Misspent Youth. Nobody writing about her generation was more incisive or entertaining than she. --Sigrid Nunez