I think that the coming of age in a book is similar and different in multiple ways. I think that some books don’t really show how the coming of age stage is. Some usually take it to the extremes. There is the bad extreme where they have to go through a death in their family or got into a car crash...usually something devastating. While others tend to take things to the Cinderella extreme where there is always a happy ending. Lets just say neither are very common. An analogy would be coming of age and a toddler taking its first steps. They aren’t fully developed and stubble a lot. Because we are growing up, we don’t always make the best decisions. Nobody is perfect and you need experience to learn from. Which is exactly how you take your first steps! You start very slowly and fall a lot, which is like gaining experience. Each stage is between something. Coming of age usually happens during adolecence, the stage between childhood and adulthood. Then learning to walk while you are little is between crawling/having to be carried and walking and running flawlessly...which isn’t entirely true because we still fall a lot! But like I said, nobody is perfect! So when the writing in books describes what coming of age is, they could make it seem like the baby walking fell hard and can never walk again or they always knew how to walk from the start. They mislead you in books more so than give you reality. I think that the lessons they give us though are great because they teach us key things like, good always beats evil, not everyone is the same as you, treat others the way you want to be treated, and also that nobody is perfect. I think that the bad extremes teach us to never give up. Lets use Harry Potter as the bad side because he starts to grow up with a lot over his head. First his mother and father die and then close friends and then it is up to him to save the wizarding world from “You-Know-Who”. There are so many lessons in that book. Some of my favorites are from Dumbledore. Like, “It takes a great man to man to stand up to his enemies and a greater man to stand up to his friends.” A great quote for coming of age. So, the examples of coming of age in books are pretty even with real life. Because of the way that the lessons even out with the unrealistic reasons.