YOUR OWN TWO FEET

A breezy, convivial guide to the basics of post-college life, this debut primer is especially suited to well-heeled readers whose financial resources lessen their immediate need for gainful employment.

In eight chapters, reporter Meyer (Bloomberg News Service) details a path for a particular breed of collegian, one who is neither shouldering substantial debt nor particularly pressed to earn a living. For such grads, Meyer details strategies for finding a place to live (complete with on-the-cheap decorating tips), inventories of groceries to stock, and household items to obtain (55 separate domestic objects). That many if not most students live on their own during college, and have presumably changed light bulbs and prepared more than one meal, does not deter Meyer from doling out basic, near-gratuitous advice, offering recipes for the culinarily challenged as well as an incomplete (and partially inaccurate, in her discussion of herpes transmission) précis of STD risks for sexually active young adults. Meyer’s conversational, slangy tone couches questionable generalized advice on attending parties (accept all invitations, unless your escort appears “physically dangerous”) and on finding friends in a new city (“go where the young people hang out”). Most revealing of all, the author ignores the job seeker’s search until the last chapter of the book, following lengthy discussions of unpaid employment options such as internships and, at the most extreme, missionary work abroad. Despite the surprising omission of online resources, the chapter on finding work is the strongest of the lot and is regrettably buried at the back of the book.

Privileged young adults who can afford to tend to quality-of-life issues before bread-and-butter concerns may gain insights in these pages, but readers facing their first real financial responsibilities will discover little practical merit in Meyer’s guidebook.