"Know this: cool is overrated. Freeing yourself from the relentless pursuit of cool can be the single biggest thing you can do to create personal happiness in your life, besides installing a zip line in your backyard or deleting Twitter from your phone."

By this account, my husband and three teens are the happiest people on the entire planet. True story. Well, OK - none of them ever installed the Twitter app in the first place. But still.

This is a sampling of Jason Gay awaiting you in Little Victories: Perfect Rules for Imperfect Living. Highly anecdotal, highly amusing. Then again, I'm part of a family that checks each morning's Wall Street Journal for Gay's column and looks forward to his Rules for Thanksgiving Touch Football almost as much - maybe more during some years - Thanksgiving Day football itself.

Gay relates to and opines on issues as varied as coolness, health, marriage, sports, gyms, manners, work, and kids. In each chapter, expect a story. Or a quiz. Maybe it's serious. Maybe it's humorous. But it's totally Gay. And it's followed by advice in bullet-point form - again, some serious, some tongue-in-cheek.

If you have any sense of decency, you will smile. You will read a sentence or two to the person sitting nearest you. You will tweet newly-acquired advice. (Because face it, most of us are still hanging on to Twitter, trying to be cool.) You might even laugh out loud. And if you're not careful, you just might pick up something worthwhile along the way.

I don't like sports, and I love this sportswriter. And really, this book has very little to do with sports.

I received this as an ARC through NetGalley. I'd never read any of Jason Gay's columns (which is surprising, given how much I like to read about sports), but that changed the instant I finished the book. It's a book I'll recommend to anyone who is looking for well-written essays on life that will make you smile, pump your fist in agreement, and laugh out loud (the real kind of LOL, not the ironic kind). I never highlight passages in my Kindle, but I found myself highlighting funny snippets and little gems right and left. I have a feeling lots of other readers will feel the same way and that this book will be a big hit.

This little volume has been quite a surprise for me. It was in some list I read in December, of goal-affirming books, or something -- something I wouldn't normally read, but several looked kind of interesting, so I put most of the list on hold at the library. From the start, this book spoke to me in a very down-to-earth voice, funny and calm, and not taking itself too seriously. There's a chapter affirming the importance of maintaining friendships, and putting in the effort to do so, that came at a good time for me. There's also a thread running through about his relationship with his dad, and his dad's illness and death, that included some reminders I needed just now. Even the material on parenting, which doesn't pertain to me directly, was amusing and had me nodding my head in agreement from my knowledge of friends' parenting misadventures. All in all, Little Victories has been an enjoyable quick read, with some thoughts I'll carry away with me to my advantage.

Sportswriter, Jason Guy, seems to be an affable sort of guy. He certainly has a way of relating some of his most interesting stories, which at times, are laugh out loud funny. Sometimes, he'll relate a story, something you know all to well about, and can't help but let out a snork! He talks about family, health, sickness, friendships, Rihanna and technology. He writes about things the reader has thought about but has never put down in words. The bullet points he includes are most enjoyable. His Ten Key Rules For The Thanksgiving Touch Football Game are great life hacks too. As far as "Little Victories" are concerned, there are a couple of major ones the author has experienced and knows, in conclusion, it is also the "small steps", "marginal improvements", the "little victories" that see him through.

A fun, quick read. I laughed out loud while reading, especially on his chapter about gyms.

4.5
A gripping and hilarious collection of anecdotes. The audiobook speaker featured through Overdrive brought the stories to life!

Entertaining for what it is, a not so serious self-help book. I laughed. Probably won't change my life drastically, but it entertained.

Started out the year well -- really enjoyed this little book. Funny, poignant, great takeaway.