The Life You Imagine: Life Lessons for Achieving Your Dreams

The Life You Imagine is a motivational book about achieving dreams. Since the book is written by Derek Jeter, most would think that it is purely motivational in the sports realm. This is not the case. Throughout the book, Derek Jeter teaches people of all ages how to work toward their dreams. He writes about the importance of doing well academically, setting goals, and living a well balanced life. Teenagers will enjoy the mix of facts about the Yankees, but will also learn about Derek Jeter as an all around good person. A good example of this is the section of the book where Jeter talks about his admiration for his sister due to her prowess at a number of sports and concentration on academics. This book will connect in curricular units show more where students are focusing on non fiction reading strategies or in an autobiography/biography unit. I could see the book used as one of many that is offered to students to differentiate for interest and reading level. While on the longer side, the text is written at a level that it would be appropriate for many middle school or high school students. show less

The Life you Imagined by Derek Jeter is a biography about how you should never give up on your self and always try your best. He talks about how he managed to make it to the majors while succeeding in other things to like school. He was told that he would never make it to were he is today because of his race or maybe his size. But he never gave up. The setting takes place from Kalamazoo Michigan,Tampa Bay Florida, and all the way to New York City. The main characters in the story are Derek Jeter, his parents,his sister,and some of his past teammates and managers. He says that he was bullied because his parents were biracial or his sister was a lot darker than he was. But he put all those comments behind him and kept on working to the show more best of his ability. He was worried he would never find a spot on the Yankees roster because every time he would get called up to the majors, he would be called back down to AAA about two weeks later. He made a countless number of phone calls home to his family crying because he didn't think he was good enough or herd a rumor of a bad comment. My opinion on this book was that I thought it was a very educational book and should be read by people who like Baseball and want to know what its like growing up to become famous. show less

Excellent book! Highly recommended to parents, young athletes, students and coaches. Written in 2000 when Jeter was still a young major leaguer, with much of his career in front of him. His lessons and recommendations are useful to everyone. You will certainly get something helpful out of this book regardless of your goals or interests.

Number of Pages Read: 279/279

Summary: This book is about Derek Jeter's life lessons to live by. There are ten main lessons. In this book he shares stories about his childhood and growing up that pertain to these ten rules.

Favorite/Main Character: Derek Jeter is the main character and also my favorite character of this book. He is 26 years old and is bi-racial. He is the starting shortstop of the New York Yankees and he is very dedicated to his career and family and is a hard-worker. He had to go through so much in order to live his dream. He changes through out the book because it shows the steps of how he became a Major League Baseball player and how he grew up into a mature adult.

I can relate to this book and it's main character, show more Derek, because I too love baseball and have a passion for it. I can also relate to the book because in it, his parents are very supportive like my parents and everyone is always close together like my family.

There was nothing that I didn't like in this book. It was inspiring.

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to any Yankees fan, a baseball lover or anyone who needs some inspiration to live life to its fullest.

Movie: The person who would play Derek Jeter in the movie of this book is, obviously, Derek Jeter because he would be the perfect person to play himself since he knows himself so well. show less