How We Grow Up: Understanding Adolescence

Matt Richtel

Hardcover

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Pre-order: Ships Jul 8th, 2025

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"Essential reading." -- Dr. Vivek Murthy

"This book should be at the bedside of every parent." -- Kirkus Reviews

Greatly expanding his award-winning New York Times series on the contemporary teen mental-health crisis, Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter Matt Richtel delivers a groundbreaking investigation into adolescence, the pivotal life stage undergoing profound--and often confounding--transformation.

The transition from childhood to adulthood is a natural, evolution-honed cycle that now faces radical change and challenge. The adolescent brain, sculpted for this transition over eons of evolution, confronts a modern world that creates so much social pressure as to regularly exceed the capacities of the evolving mind. The problem comes as a bombardment of screen-based information pelts the brain just as adolescence is undergoing a second key change: puberty is hitting earlier. The result is a neurological mismatch between an ultra-potent environment and a still-maturing brain that can lead to anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. It is a crisis that is part of modern life but can only be truly grasped through a broad, grounded lens of the biology of adolescence itself. Through this lens, Richtel shows us how adolescents can understand themselves, and parents and educators can better help.

For decades, this transition to adulthood has been defined by hormonal shifts that trigger the onset of puberty. But Richtel takes us where science now understands so much of the action is: the brain. A growing body of research that looks for the first time into budding adult neurobiology explains with untold clarity the emergence of the "social brain," a craving for peer connection, and how the behaviors that follow pave the way for economic and social survival. This period necessarily involves testing--as the adolescent brain is programmed from birth to take risks and explore themselves and their environment--so that they may be able to thrive as they leave the insulated care of childhood.

Richtel, diving deeply into new research and gripping personal stories, offers accessible, scientifically grounded answers to the most pressing questions about generational change. What explains adolescent behaviors, risk-taking, reward-seeking, and the ongoing mental health crisis? How does adolescence shape the future of the species? What is the nature of adolescence itself?

Book Details

Publisher: Mariner Books
Publish Date: Jul 8th, 2025
Pages: 336
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 9.00in - 6.00in - 1.15in - 1.42lb
EAN: 9780063282063
Categories: • Developmental - Adolescent• Life Stages - Adolescence• Cognitive Science

About the Author

Richtel, Matt: -

MATT RICHTEL is a health and science reporter at the New York Times. He spent nearly two years reporting on the teenage mental-health crisis for the paper's acclaimed multipart series Inner Pandemic, which won first place in public-health reporting from the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism and inspired his book How We Grow Up: Understanding Adolescence. He received the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for a series of articles about distracted driving, which he expanded into his first nonfiction book, A Deadly Wandering, a New York Times bestseller. His second nonfiction book, An Elegant Defense, on the human immune system, was a national bestseller and chosen by Bill Gates for his annual Summer Reading List.

Praise for this book

"Argues that creativity 'is as natural as reproduction itself' while exploring its evolutionary origins, examining its science and providing insight from notable creative types." -- New York Times Book Review on Inspired

"Engaging and lively. ... Crisp, conversational and at times darned funny. ... What distinguishes Inspired is its expansive range and conversational tone, as well as Richtel's ability to synthesize a lot of complex research, simplifying without oversimplifying." -- Washington Post

"An expert examination of the immune system and recent impressive advances in treating immune diseases. ... Richtel downplays the claims of enthusiasts who urge us to attain the strongest possible immune system. Immunity resembles less a comic-book superhero than a trigger-happy police force, equally capable of smiting villains and wreaking havoc on innocent bystanders. ... Richtel illuminates a complex subject so well that even physicians will learn." -- Kirkus, starred review, on An Elegant Defense

"Richtel brilliantly blurs the lines between biology primer, medical historical text and the traditional first-person patient story. ... Richtel harnesses his reporter's eye for the human condition." -- Washington Post on An Elegant Defense

"Riveting. ... Interweaves research into attention and information overload with the wrenching story of Utah teenager Reggie Shaw's tragic 2006 car crash, one of the first texting-and-driving cases in the U.S. ... Exhaustively researched. ... Richtel brings a novelist's knack for unspooling narrative conflict to bear on Shaw's real-life drama. ... Shaw is an emotionally relatable proxy for us all, most notably for an entire generation that has grown up, and acquired driver's licenses, with their thumbs and attentional priorities affixed to their smartphones. ... Compelling." -- San Francisco Chronicle (A Best Book of the Year) on A Deadly Wandering

"A hard-to-put-down account of the body's first line of defense." -- Publishers Weekly

"A thorough, richly entertaining and just-wonky-enough beginner's class in immunology through the case studies of four patients." -- Wall Street Journal

"Keen and elegantly raw. ... Not just a morality tale but a probe sent into the world of technology. ... Richtel draws all the characters with a fine brush, a delicacy that treats misery both respectfully and front-on." -- Christian Science Monitor

"The Pulitzer-winning author unpacks the myths and mysteries of the creative process, and shows the research that proves why it's not just the 'Big C' geniuses who can tap into it." -- Salon

"Inspired makes the convincing case that true creativity spans industries, movements, and endeavors." -- Scientific American