Based on his father's bestselling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Sean Covey applies the same principles to teens, using a vivacious, entertaining style. To keep it fun, Covey writes, he "stuffed it full of cartoons, clever ideas, great quotes, and incredible stories about real teens from all over the world... along with a few other surprises." Did he ever! Flip open to any page and become instantly absorbed in real-life stories of teens who have overcome obstacles to succeed, and step-by-step guides to shifting paradigms, building equity in "relationship bank accounts," creating action plans, and much more.

Very upbeat, funny, non-invasive

I'm not a teenager anymore, but I still enjoyed reading Sean Covey's book. A person might criticize Sean for riding on his father's coattails (Stephen R. Covey of the Seven Habits collection of books and other materials). However, Stephen himself has said that he is not responsible for creating the ideas involved with the seven habits, and I doubt that anyone would criticize Sean for much of anything after reading 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens.'

I really liked this book, to state the obvious. It can serve to excite interest in social science in younger readers, or at least make them consider things about themselves they have not thought much about. What are your dominant intelligences? Are you a grape, an orange, a banana, or a melon (different categories of personalities)? The book is definitely a tool that promotes self-discovery.

Sean explains the seven habits with anecdotes from his personal life and situations that would be familiar to anyone. Overall it's a very uplifting, insightful book that presents a wonderful learning opportunity to readers of any age. The book doesn't have to be read cover to cover, even people who don't like to read can browse through it or read just one section and walk away with food for thought. And definitely ideas that can be applied to their everyday lives. econ

Read it if You Need it

I read this book in tenth grade as a mandatory part of a success-related class in high school. What I found was a book that was easy to read, slightly beneficial, but containing a hypocritical chapter that ruined the whole meaning for me.

Yes, Sean DOES state many skills that people should develop in order to be happy and successful in their lives. Yes, he did put some of them into practise, and uses fairly interesting, real-life stories to stress the importance or relevance of the skills. However, I found a particular personal anecdote he mentioned in here to be contradictory with the very purpose of the book. Sean himself was a low-grade-achieving, drop-out student. He was given a decent job because he happened to know someone in a high position at a famous, profitable company (I'm not giving details, in case someone doesn't want to be given too much info). Basically, he lucked out. If his achieval of the job had been through determination and effort instead of dumb-luck and good connections, maybe I would've taken the story more seriously.

If you feel this book will give you the motivation you need, by all means pick it up. It's a quick, easy read with good morals. If you're already happy with who you are, and stress yourself out enough about "being successful," you probably don't need it.

Slowly, but surely.

I got this book when I was like in 7th grade and read it, but didn't understand it. In eigth grade I read it again, and again once more. I started understanding what the book was saying, and I really LOVED how Sean wrote the book. He used real life experperiences from when he was a teen, as well as other people. This was towards the end of my eigth grade year. By the time I started High school, I stopped procrastinating and had much better grades. Nor would I "forget" my homework. Then I made a friend who was in the IB program as well as I, but procrastinated really bad. I knew exactly what to prescribe. When I referred to the book, I was amazed at how I practiced everything without even thinking of it. I found that I could manage my time wisely: hold a B+ average, wrestle, and still have time for myself. I hope that the book will have the same effect on him, as well as everyone else.