Chapters end with a short summary with bullet points for each of the generations, and in an analogy to a boxing match each chapter or "round" is awarded to the situation of the Millennials as either something new or same as it ever was. Twentysomething ends by adding up the rounds and declaring a winner. No spoiler here—you'll need to read the book to get the answer.
And reading the book is no great chore, even for an old codger long past his twentysomethings and his boomer years as well.
There is a lot of amusing give and take between the co-authors. Neither is shy about stepping out in their own voice and good naturedly teasing about their own relationship. They talk about themselves honestly and it is easy to feel comfortable with them. Indeed, I'm not sure that I wouldn't have welcomed a lot more of their banter and personal history. I was often more interested in that than in some of the academic summary.
Todays twentysomethings are tomorrow's fiftysomethings. They may, as some statistics seem to indicate, be choosing to have their children later in life, but at some point they'll be looking at their own twentysomethings and more than likely asking why they seem to be stuck. They will look at how the world has changed since their own twenties, and they will worry about the way whatever they are calling the Millennials are dealing with those changes. They'll be asking, is this the new new or is it the same as it ever was? And they'll probably come to much the same conclusions reached by the Henigs.
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