I took this book from my parents' house while I was helping them pack up to move, and I read it yesterday. It was very short, and each chapter was only about 3-4 pages, which made it move along even faster. Each chapter was basically just Elder Oaks sharing specific personal experiences where he learned important principles of the gospel and how he knows those to be true, starting with his father's death and what he learned from that and going through his life as a lawyer, President of BYU, and then his calling as an apostle. So there wasn't really a connected story throughout the book; each chapter had its own "life lesson" (as expected from the title) and what things he thought were important enough to share. I liked best learning about his life and when he was sharing candidly about the things he has done in his life and about his family. It was very interesting hearing about his wife dying and how his children handled that, and how they eventually suggested that he go get married again, and learning about how his mom recovered from her husband dying and starting to take care of her family again. I think that the format of this book really emphasizes that we are all made up of our individual experiences, and we learn what we know just by what we go through. So everyone has their own individual testimonies and opinions and ideas, and they can't imagine why people would see it differently--but it's just because we've all gone through totally different things. Elder Oaks went through these specific things in his life that taught him these principles of the gospel and of life, and he's now sharing how he knew those things with us. Each chapter was individually powerful and good, but when you read too many of them in a row it starts to blend together. I feel like they would be more powerful if you considered them just on their own.
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