Generation What?: Dispatches from the Quarter-Life Crisis

Editor Vanrenen, a freelance writer in Denver, makes a decent if familiar case for the ennui of the 20-something set, who have been ""sold the American dream,"" only to face an ""overwhelming"" number of questions, and even more options. Unfortunately, the essays she's assembled to parse that ennui are decidedly bottom-heavy on the hit-to-miss ratio. Hits come from Joshua Bernstein, recalling in straightforward prose his unsatisfying stint at a ""bottom-rung"" porn publishing company; and Rebecca Landwehr, who details a break-up with her high school sweetheart after a ten-year relationship. The misses all have in common a half-baked commitment to the assignment and a sense that we've read, seen or heard this all before. Kate Torgovnick's ""How I Became a Bed-Maker,"" about her growing maturity and necessity for order, and Justin Maki's ""Salvation in Wordplay,"" dealing with his post-collegiate experiences in Japan, prove uninteresting and occasionally difficult to digest; however, they're just two among numerous disappointments. To be sure, 20-somethings, like everyone else, can and do go through legitimate crises of faith and identity; those looking for levelheaded answers-or even a few well-posed queries-will do better looking elsewhere.