MANEUVERING THROUGH THE ADVENTURE OF LIFE

A guide to meeting self-defined goals via determination, persistence and faith.

Ferraro shows us that you do not have to come from a privileged background to achieve your objective; you just identify that objective and take the necessary steps. His narrative seems to lend itself to a YA audience not only because it begins while he’s still in high school, but also because his diction is rudimentary. Basic questions at the end of each chapter help readers reevaluate their goals or can be used to facilitate class discussions. Chapter summaries can be skipped, along with superfluous anecdotes that don’t serve the book’s premise. For example, he often talks about skiing and riding motorcycles, but he doesn’t connect these topics to achieving goals or building discipline. Too often, the text seems to meander. However, the author’s openness about both his successes and his failures engages. He confesses that, “You can lose money in the real estate market. We lost $25,000 on the first house we purchased and sold because the market crashed,” but he goes on to emphasize the importance of perspective, “On a positive side, we were able to buy another house cheaper.” Ferraro’s strength is in showing how arduous his path has been and how he continuously reassessed in order to advance. He also succeeds in demonstrating how each adventure in life, whether positive or negative, provides a lesson for the future.

A wandering guide that offers some useful wisdom.