That’s why creating a book summing up the prom experience as a whole is not an easy feat. From detailing the tedious search for an outfit, to encompassing the anxiety a student feels wondering whether they’ll get lucky for the first time – there’s a lot to write about.

But Rob Spillman, editor for Portland-based literary magazine Tin House, took on the challenge in his new book “The Time of My Life: Writers on the Heartbreak, Hormones, and Debauchery of The Prom.”

“The American prom is a three-billion dollar industry,” Spillman writes in the book. “The coming-of-age ritual is commercialized with books on how to plan your prom, young adult novels with prom themes, and magazines dedicated to prom-worthy hairstyles, flowers, limousines, makeup, and dresses, and there are entire companies devoted to making the teen’s prom one in a million.”

The book features a collection of essays written by 17 former students about their prom night experiences. The good, bad and ugly aspects of the “three-billion dollar industry” are shared with the reader within the humorous anecdotes.

Prom as an experience is difficult to retell, but each storyteller gives background information about themselves that gives them a humanizing element.

The stories themselves are varied — everything from sex romps, going stag to the prom or skipping it altogether are included in the book.

The first essay sets the tone for the demeanor of the book, where writer Walter Kirn describes his prom night experience with two dates — both of whom were foreign exchange students.

“Some new bond was being stirred up in that cramped car,” Kirn writes, describing his post-prom experience with his dates. “Some fresh form of international understanding that the Rotary Club, who sponsored the exchange program, might not have planned on but shouldn’t have been displeased by.”

Readers from different decades will find their era of prom represented at least once in this book. Allusions to proms featuring rock ballad-heavy musical selections are mixed in with stories from early 1990s accounts.

The social hierarchy also is well-represented here, as the book highlights the spectrum of ne’er-do-well social outcasts to popular, privileged kids all in a mad scramble to make “that special night” live up to its tag.

“The Time of My Life” does a great job of detailing the rites of passage prom presents in a way that any past student would find interesting. Although that time has passed for college students, now is as good a time as ever to reflect on the special night and the adventure attached to it.