Grace’s Guide saves lives

advise meeeeee

Because we have no fucking idea how to be adults

Depending on your mood, Aristotle isn’t a very fun read. Insightful? Yes. Entering the year 2016, it becomes questionable as to how advantageous our friendly philosophers can be when it comes to day-to-day life as a young adult in the 21st century.

If you’ve wasted as much time on the internet, namely YouTube, as I have, you’ll know who Grace Helbig is. Her new-ish book, Grace’s Guide: The Art of Pretending To Be A Grown-Up, which came out in 2014, is actually pretty beneficial for those of us who can’t quite manage the transition from childhood to adulthood (so, pretty much everyone). Grace Helbig has a few channels on YouTube, as she is one of the most easily recognizable faces of the website. Her most popular exploits are “DailyGrace” and “MyDamnChannel,” both of which I am subscribed to… so you can be assured that she’s consistently funny, but still real, because that’s what I’m about.

When I moved out into my own apartment this summer, it was incredibly daunting; probably because I felt like I had never done a day’s work at my family home. I was given this book for my birthday, four months before, and mainly read it for some entertainment and helpful advice regarding how to make friends as an adult, because that shit’s hard. Now that I actually get excited over Dollar Store wineglasses and slow cooking, it can be assumed that I am, in fact, an adult now. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I need to understand things like efficient grocery shopping and other adult uses for payday, developing a successful career, connections for said career, and socializing with other adults. It’s all in here, so everyone who’s between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five can breathe a sigh of relief.

Grace goes into depth on the following topics: 50 Adult Survival Tips, Your Professional Life, Your Social Life, Your Love Life, and Your Lifestyle. In each section, she answers pretty much any question you could have about being a successful adult that you’re too embarrassed to ask your parents about. Need some recipes for hangover cures? Grace has your back. Don’t know how to decorate like an adult? Even though she hurts my heart by emphasizing Ikea and all its wonders (damn you, Regina. Ikea is a Godsend and how dare you limit your citizens?), she teaches us how to make a fun and mature living space for ourselves. I’ll take any help I can get.

If you’re particular about where you get your advice from, as you’re able to live comfortably under your own common sense, or the logic of your peers/parental units, you might be tempted to give this book a pass. Especially if you’re unaware who Grace Helbig is. I can talk all day about how much it helped me with the little things, but at the end of the day, you have to be comfortable with where you get your information. Parents are great, friends understand, and you know yourself better than anyone. But it’s never a bad idea to get a second opinion, even if you’re just in it for the puns, which she delivers. A YouTuber who has experience as a young adult making her start, whose audience is typically young adults, who lives in the 21st century, and understands what it’s like to make ends meet as a twenty-something, and is willing to share her experiences with the world in a 235 page book is worth my attention, and hopefully yours.

Honestly, the best thing about this book is that she gets it. Being a Millennial is really, really tough and we don’t get credit for that. If the government and the Baby Boomers won’t help us, who will? We have to look out for one another. Not that the government has ever been particularly helpful to begin with, but our generation is tough enough to fend for ourselves. We just need some advice sometimes. From one young adult making her start to another, I think that Grace’s Guide should be the coffee table book for each young adult living on their own, because everyone can get something out of it. Just remember to leave room for your large Beyoncé coffee table book. Don’t be disrespectful.