What happens in the adolescent brain? What drives the excessive risk-taking or the need for intense friendships common in this age group? Why does an easy child become a challenging teenager? And why is it that many mental illnesses– depression, addiction, schizophrenia– begin during these formative years? Drawing upon her cutting-edge research in her London laboratory, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore explains how our brains in adolescence, and what scientific experiments have revealed about our behavior and how we relate to each other and our environment in these years. She shows that while adolescence is a period of vulnerability, it is also a time of enormous creativity– one that should be acknowledged, nurtured and celebrated. Our adolescence provides a lens through which we can see ourselves anew. It is fundamental to how we invent ourselves.