THE TEENAGE GUIDE TO SUCCESS

Fidelman’s nonfiction guide offers wide-ranging advice for teenagers.

The author lodges a social media lure right in the subtitle of his nonfiction debut, but he’s very much not singing the praises of the social media app TikTok, which he views as a pernicious influence in the lives of teens. Rather, when laying out his precepts for his teen readers, he wants them to use the handy acronym “TICK TOCK”: T for “Taming Social Media,” I for “Inspiring Hard Work,” C for “Choosing a Mentor,” K for “Knowing Your Struggles,” T for “Treasure Beyond Money,” O for “Owning Your Passion,” C for “Cultivating Relationships,” and K for “Knowledge Expansion.” Fidelman uses each section of his book to elaborate on these principles, incorporating stories along the way about anonymized teens facing some of the issues he raises (“Joe,” for instance, “sees his friends having fun but also wasting time and wonders if he should be working at all”). The author frequently cites public figures like Patti Stanger, star of The Millionaire Matchmaker television program (“The reason billionaires become billionaires is because they do the things they don’t want to do first,” she’s quoted. “You got to get the crap out of the way so you can do the fun stuff”). Fidelman himself is very much present in the book’s narrative, consistently adopting the friendly, no-nonsense tone of a trusted old brother with lines like, “In the last section, we talked about how money isn’t always the answer, right?” He strikes a winning note by taking teen challenges completely seriously, comparing life to riding a dragon that requires careful control at all times. Adolescents feeling adrift in a world without serious, caring mentoring will find a good deal of moral and practical clarity in these pages—and so will plenty of older readers.

A wise and pragmatic life guide for teens.