Find Your Feet (The 8 Things I Wish I’d Known before I Left High School) (Rebecca Sparrow, UQP)

Find Your Feet is the second nonfiction book that Rebecca Sparrow has written for young women, following Find Your Tribe (And 9 Other Things I Wish I’d Known in High School). While the first book dealt with high school, the second deals with life immediately afterwards. As with the first book, it is empowering, funny and realistic. Sparrow has a fantastic conversational style, and reveals enough of her own mistakes to create a real bond with the reader. I particularly liked chapter two, ‘Real life has real consequences’, and chapter six, ‘You teach people how to treat you’. Reminding young people that the worst thing that can happen isn’t a detention is important, as is encouraging young women to work out their relationship deal-breakers. The quotes from well-known women, and extracts from the comments section on mamamia.com.au, will help readers find someone they can relate to. Obviously, this would be a perfect book to give to a young woman in Year 12, but there is some scope here for women both older and younger—perhaps those in Year 11, or even those who have finished school and are struggling to find their place in the world.

Jessica Broadbent is a former bookseller and a qualified librarian, who is still trying to find her own feet

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews