(no subject)

[radiantsheep]

so i keep hearing the term quarter-life crisis, which just makes me want to laugh. i mean, at some point we're going to have to admit that every phase of life is a crisis- adolescense is a crisis, then the quarter-life crisis, then the mid-life crisis, then it's time to think about death. i don't know if people today just continually fail to cope with life, or if it's how much we like psycho-babble- hey, now we have a term for it, it must have legitimacy! i may rant, but i can empathize. the older i get, the more i know what i want and the less i know how to get there, and it kind of pitches my brain to what could be called quarter-life crisis mode. i simultaneously know exactly what i want and have no idea what i want. every other day i think, let's just go off to mexico for a year or so and see what life's like when we get back. on the days in between i haphazardly put together grad school plans as i try to figure out what would both be fulfilling and enable me to live in my beloved city the rest of my life. and how on earth some family life might fit into that.

i'm really tired of thinking about it all. i want to think about it without really thinking about it, so here's my question: what's a good quarter-life book? i want a novel that will make me think, but not necessarily just about myself. i want one that resonates but sheds new light too. i want for my twenties what douglas coupland was for my teens. do people still read books like that when they're not intense little adolescents? any ideas? it can't be escapist, that would be beside the point.