Rainesford Stauffer is a writer I beyond admire. Reading her work feels effortless, and yet it shouldn’t escape you how much work and thought she puts into every single word, how painstaking her reporting is. While the internet is littered with her triumphs, a must-read is her new book—An Ordinary Age: Finding Your Way in a World That Expects Exceptional—a work which explores the intense pressure facing young adults today to live their “best lives,” and is in many ways, an intensely well-thought out postscript to Meg Jay’s revolutionary The Defining Decade.
I recently had the chance to speak with Stauffer about her book, and five others she’d like to recommend. She said that “After realizing it’d be nearly impossible to narrow down every book that’s shaped my life, I landed on a theme condensed to 2021: five books that made me think bigger in 2021. It is, admittedly, quite broad, because thinking bigger could be about anything, and they’re all books I’ve read in the past several months.”
“But these books have common threads that run between them,” Stauffer added. “They reshaped what I thought I understood about something, be it ballet or imagination or my own chronic illness; they reignited a vigorous curiosity in figuring out what else I don’t know; they taught me things I didn’t even know that I didn’t know.”
“I love writing about young adults that examines and amplifies complexity of their lived experiences, and from the first few pages of Nicole Lynn Lewis’s memoir, that’s where we are: in a car, alongside Lewis, a then-pregnant teenager, navigating forces that shaped her life long before she was a teenage mother,” Stauffer said. “This memoir is a visceral portrait of Lewis’s personal life, and a critical look at teen pregnancy, which still gets hush-hushed away under stigma and avoidance.” What stood out to Stauffer so profoundly about this book, “beyond how Lewis wove a gripping personal story with critical research, is that, at the heart of it, this memoir is an interrogation of worthiness—it’s about the inherent value of young people, and what programs and policies actually stand to support them. It’s a call to action, really.”
“I’m just repeating what your Instagram feed, your library, and Oprah have likely already told you: You should read this memoir. The writing is gorgeous—it’s one of those glorious books where every sentence, every word, peels back another layer, holding the reader so closely, you can almost feel the breath of the story on your face.” But it’s just that. According to Stauffer, “it’s also one of the most evocative explorations of coming-of-age I’ve ever seen on the page. To me, this is a book that should be on every nightstand or book shelf—but also in every single library and classroom. It’s a wonder, and a masterpiece.”
Stauffer grew up in ballet, and “in this book, I saw the experiences I grew up hearing about put in context, and I loved it. But just as a reader, I was riveted. It’s a remarkable examination of gender, power, bodies and body image standards, racism, labor, and how decades of inequity and power imbalances compound, set against the backdrop of an industry many people consider otherworldly. One of the things I adored about it is how Angyal’s reporting didn’t just highlight inequities; it examined what a restructuring, a transformation, of ballet would be—and how much more inclusive, dynamic, accessible, and interesting the art form would be as a result.” Best of all, you “by no means do you have to be a bunhead to love it: it’s a reckoning that will be appreciated by all who find themselves fascinated by so-called ‘hidden’ worlds, and what making those worlds better would mean.”
“I had an accidental strategy for reading this book: I’d cry. I’d dog ear what felt like every page. I’d underline something. I’d cry again. As someone grappling with chronic illness, this book felt like a sigh of relief and a battle cry all at once,” Stauffer said. “This book is equal parts a guide, a personal story, and an analysis, taking on the American healthcare system in a manner that grounds, in data and studies and personal narrative, exactly how disturbing it is. To me, this book was a lifeline and a lighthouse; it rippled with humor, compassion, and with the unique grief of being overwhelmed by your own body. But it’s also a resource, and one of the most practical, detailed, and honest books on chronic illness I’ve ever read. Books may not heal us, but I emerged from this one with a greater understanding of my own body, our healthcare system, and the necessity of compassion, humor, and candor.”
“Whether you ever kept a journal or diary, or know a young person who does, this book is beautifully illustrative of the power of our everyday lives, in our own words,” Stauffer says. “Ahuja asked teenage girls to keep daily journals, and those journals, along with photographs and Ahuja’s research and reporting, create snapshots of a day in the lives of girls around the world. We learn about their circumstances and communities right alongside their hopes, dreams, hobbies, and fears. We see their senses of humor, and what matters to them.” Perhaps most importantly, “Rather than focusing on prodigious exceptionalism or life-defining hardships, the book centers what life is like for ordinary girls, and allows us to see their part of the world, and their day-to-day experiences, through their eyes.” Stauffer loves this book and argued it created a standard, “it takes girls, and their lived experiences—their own words, their own worlds—seriously, and gives them the platform, space, and resources to tell their own stories.”
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