Reading this book felt like having Lisa Sugar sitting right in front of me, talking me through different aspects of life over a cup of coffee, like a good friend or mentor.

“Power Your Happy” is broken down into ten chapters that range in topics from finding your passion and navigating adulthood to taking care of your health and how to deal with the crappy stuff that happens in the workplace! It’s packed with useful information that’s easy to digest—similar to POPSUGAR articles.

Unlike other business or self-help books that might seem too dry (and basically resemble light textbooks), Lisa makes sure to keep everything light and friendly. She also backs up all of her advice and tips with personal anecdotes and stories about friends and friends-turned-coworkers.

Lisa’s down-to-earth approach is refreshing. Instead of hiding her true path to success like many do, she simply lays everything out. When Lisa can’t directly pull a story from personal experience, she’s still able to share a new enlightening perspective with readers.

For example, when she talks about break-ups and bad relationships, she admits she doesn’t have a lot of experience in that department (she met her husband in college). But, she still talks about how it feels to be the supportive friend, how she’s able to help, and what it takes to move forward.

I find it very respectable that she’s able to admit she isn’t the most experienced or knowledgable in that area but still find ways to talk about it with real examples.

Though the book is mainly geared towards young women in college and young professionals, Lisa Sugar shares good advice for women in all stages of their career. Many women, especially women who aspire to become managers or run businesses someday, will find more of her advice applicable than anybody.

Personally, I wish I had this book when I was still in college because there is a lot of information in here that just I couldn’t get from my family, peers, or professors. I didn’t know any graduates from my program who were in my industry, and at that time, blogs written by my peers didn’t really openly talk about life after college. Or maybe they did and because I was a college kid, I was looking at life after college very differently. And because I probably wasn’t spending time reading through a bunch of blogs. Well anyway, this book is packed with good information all in one spot.

There were so many times while reading the book where I would come across a topic and think about how I had to figure it on my own or how I just had to see things play out with coworkers. While learning from experience is good, I would have been a lot less stressed out and anxious if I had this book before I started my career.

One of the most useful parts of the book (and my favorite part, too!) is how at the end of every chapter, there is a questionnaire you can take to help apply what Lisa has just discussed to your own situation. To me, that’s a really strong way to apply what you’ve just learned and also answer the tough questions. They really help you learn more about yourself, what your goals are, and what you should do in the future to meet those goals.

Overall, this book was a light read even though it was filled with good info and is one I would recommend to college students and young professionals. I would give it a 4/5 and if it were sitting on my bookshelf, I would definitely refer to it from time to time.

For more information, check out http://www.poweryourhappy.com/!

I received this “Power Your Happy” free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.