Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

by Anne Helen Petersen

Overview

A BEST BOOK OF THE FALL AS SEEN IN: Apartment Therapy • Book Riot • Business Insider • BuzzFeed • Daily Nebraskan • Entertainment Weekly • Esquire • Fortune • Harper’s Bazaar • HelloGiggles • LinkedIn • O Magazine • Time Magazine

“[A] razor sharp book of cultural criticism…With blistering prose and all-too vivid reporting, Petersen lays bare the burnout and despair of millennials, while also charting a path to a world where members of her generation can feel as if the boot has been removed from their necks.” —Esquire

“An analytically precise, deeply empathic book about the psychic toll modern capitalism has taken on those shaped by it. Can't Even is essential to understanding our age, and ourselves."—Ezra Klein, Vox co-founder and New York Times bestselling author of Why We're Polarized

An incendiary examination of burnout in millennials—the cultural shifts that got us here, the pressures that sustain it, and the need for drastic change

Do you feel like your life is an endless to-do list? Do you find yourself mindlessly scrolling through Instagram because you’re too exhausted to pick up a book? Are you mired in debt, or feel like you work all the time, or feel pressure to take whatever gives you joy and turn it into a monetizable hustle? Welcome to burnout culture.

While burnout may seem like the default setting for the modern era, in Can’t Even, BuzzFeed culture writer and former academic Anne Helen Petersen argues that burnout is a definitional condition for the millennial generation, born out of distrust in the institutions that have failed us, the unrealistic expectations of the modern workplace, and a sharp uptick in anxiety and hopelessness exacerbated by the constant pressure to “perform” our lives online. The genesis for the book is Petersen’s viral BuzzFeed article on the topic, which has amassed over seven million reads since its publication in January 2019.

Can’t Even goes beyond the original article, as Petersen examines how millennials have arrived at this point of burnout (think: unchecked capitalism and changing labor laws) and examines the phenomenon through a variety of lenses—including how burnout affects the way we work, parent, and socialize—describing its resonance in alarming familiarity. Utilizing a combination of sociohistorical framework, original interviews, and detailed analysis, Can’t Even offers a galvanizing, intimate, and ultimately redemptive look at the lives of this much-maligned generation, and will be required reading for both millennials and the parents and employers trying to understand them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780358315070
Publisher:	HMH Books
Publication date:	09/22/2020
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	30,864
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

A former senior culture writer for BuzzFeed, Anne Helen Petersen now writes her newsletter, Culture Study, as a full-time venture on Substack. Petersen received her PhD at the University of Texas at Austin, where she focused on the history of celebrity gossip. Her previous books, Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud and Scandals of Classic Hollywood, were featured in NPR, Elle, and the Atlantic. She lives in Missoula, Montana.

 

Editorial Reviews

07/13/2020

BuzzFeed writer Peterson (Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud) explores how low-paying jobs, overstimulation, and unattainable expectations have contributed to millennial malaise in this trenchant and well-researched account. Young people who once received participation trophies now seek “cool” jobs, Petersen writes, only to fall into the “trap” of long hours and inadequate pay. Though older generations mischaracterize America’s largest demographic group as lazy and selfish, millennials are actually working multiple jobs to pay bills in the modern gig economy as they watch the American dream slip away, Petersen contends. She weaves together personal reflections, profiles of other millennials, and a plethora of demographic information to addresses issues such as parenting, social media, college debt, and health care. Though she recommends finding “solace” in hobbies and notes that one family reduced their stress by moving from the East Coast to Idaho, Petersen is more focused on bluntly describing her generation’s many obstacles than offering solutions to burnout. By turns exasperated, indignant, and empathetic, she supports her claims with strong evidence and calls on millennials to be a force for widespread social change. The result is an incisive portrait of a generation primed for revolt. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

09/01/2020

Petersen (Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud) speaks directly to the zeitgeist and those powerful but subtle cultural and economic forces that have squeezed the leisure out of life. The millennial generation, those born between 1981 and 1996, may not achieve the American dream; their endless efforts to study, work, and generally optimize themselves have not yielded the middle-class stability that was promised to them by previous generations and society at large. Petersen's book centers on this massive letdown. What has become, and what will become, of this grand share of the U.S. population who have hustled endlessly but secured no real gains? The burnout suffered by millennials is richly evoked by interviews, research, and snippets from Petersen's own day-to-day experiences. The predicament makes for an eye-catching centerpiece in a larger argument. Our systems of education and employment are seriously broken; they do not function on behalf of those humans inside them. By the end of the work, we understand what millennials are dealing with. But the force of Petersen's arguments keeps pushing. Readers will wonder: How does burnout affect those on the margins of society? VERDICT An impassioned call for action that, like the viral BuzzFeed article it was based on, raises more questions than answers.—Sierra Dickey, Brattleboro, VT

Library Journal

★ 2020-09-16
Why millennials are struggling to catch up to the prosperity enjoyed by previous generations.

Stress, student debt, increasing income inequality, the need to achieve and fill every moment of time with an activity or endeavor that will look good on a CV—these are just some of the reasons why the millennial generation is having a difficult time maintaining the same level of success as the boomers. In articulate and persuasive prose, former Buzzfeed senior culture writer Petersen delivers a cogent explanation of the millennial landscape, incorporating in-depth research, interviews, and her own experiences to define the problems that millennials face as they attempt to live up to high, occasionally near-impossible expectations. “We were raised to believe that if we worked hard enough, we could win the system—of American capitalism and meritocracy—or at least live comfortably within it,” writes the author. “But something happened in the late 2010s. We looked up from our work and realized, there’s no winning the system when the system itself is broken. We’re the first generation since the Great Depression where many of us will find ourselves worse off than our parents. The overarching trend of upward mobility has finally reversed itself, smack dab into the prime earning years of our lives.” Petersen provides an appropriate amount of historical context—especially regarding demographics, economics, and labor issues—from the Great Depression to the present, which allows readers to clearly see the shift people have undergone in their thinking about what constitutes success or happiness. This chronicle of changes is well worth reading, as the author explains so much about life in the age of Trump. Throw in the candid discussions by millennials—most of whom are burned out and can’t find satisfaction in their lives, even as they work diligently—and the book becomes an even more useful and insightful series of lessons.

A well-researched and -rendered analysis of why so many millennials feel overwhelmed despite their best efforts.

Kirkus Reviews

Amazon's Top Ten Editor's Best of the Month picks for September

“Brilliant… Although Petersen wrote this before the pandemic, candidly talking about burnout culture that has now been impacted by two recessions, it’s more timely than ever.” —Apartment Therapy

“[A] razor sharp book of cultural criticism…With blistering prose and all-too vivid reporting, Petersen lays bare the burnout and despair of millennials, while also charting a path to a world where members of her generation can feel as if the boot has been removed from their necks.” —Esquire

"Whether you’re looking for solutions or just looking to feel seen, Can’t Even is a can’t-miss." —Harper's Bazaar, "27 Best Books of 2020"

"Petersen’s third book, a highlight-every-sentence-in-recognition survey of the anxiety and exhaustion baked into the lives of myriad young people, dispels many of the myths and misconceptions—the laziness! the entitlement!—surrounding the generation that came of age amid the internet and economic collapse. Yet rather than pit millennials against boomers, Petersen makes meaningful and constructive connections between the toils and troubles of the two groups." —O Magazine

"We think of capitalism as a way of organizing an economy. But given enough time, it goes beyond that: It organizes our lives, our hopes, our relationships. Anne Helen Petersen has written an analytically precise, deeply empathic book about the psychic toll modern capitalism has taken on those shaped by it. Can't Even is essential to understanding our age, and ourselves."—Ezra Klein, Vox co-founder and New York Times bestselling author of Why We're Polarized
 
"Can't Even is the Nickel and Dimed of this generation. A cogent and sober analysis of the economic lives that decades of precarity has wrought, told in Petersen's smart, measured style."—Tressie McMillan Cottom, assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina and author of the National Book Award finalist Thick: And Other Essays 
 
"Reading this incredible book, I had the overwhelming feeling of someone arranging the chaotic fragments of my life into a cohesive whole. Can’t Even felt like a field guide, a mirror, and an absolution. Compassionate, wise, and incisive, it is a defining work about a generation defined by work." —Ed Yong, writer, The Atlantic and New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes

"Can't Even is a compelling exploration of the phenomenon of burnout and how an entire generation has been set up to fail. As a Millennial, reading this book was a deeply cathartic experience. Anne Helen Petersen articulates the struggles and motivation of a generation so impeccably. Reading this book made me feel like finally, someone understands me. I wish I could give this book to everyone I know." —Taylor Lorenz, culture reporter, New York Times 

"Trenchant and well-researched...an incisive portrait of a generation primed for revolt." —Publishers Weekly

"In a cultural moment rife with inter-generational sparring ("OK, Boomer"), and with millennials garnering criticism for their transient-appearing lifestyles (never buying houses or napkins), Buzzfeed culture writer Petersen cracks open why millennials behave the way they do and how the lifestyles that have been forced upon them are a detriment to society as a whole...Petersen is generous in divulging personal experiences and hopeful even at her most enraged. This galvanizing read reminds readers that what seems impossible is absolutely not, especially for a generation with so little to lose." —Booklist, STARRED review

"Articulate and persuasive...Petersen delivers a cogent explanation of the millennial landscape, incorporating in-depth research, interviews, and her own experiences to define the problems that millennials face as they attempt to live up to high, occasionally near-impossible expectations." —Kirkus, STARRED review

“As one of the most insightful culture critics of our time, Anne explains how individuals, organizations, and societies can prevent emotional exhaustion.” —LinkedIn

"Brilliantly researched...Insightful in the vein of Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique and powerful in the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Petersen's Can't Even manages to engross and infuriate while still entertain."—Shelf Awareness

"'Can't Even’ is a cry from the heart, as well as a bill of particulars about the debt, depression, special pressures and sheer exhaustion…It’s a call for revolution.”—Weekend Edition on NPR

"A sharp critique....It is my sincere hope that every millennial reads [this book]."—Bookpage, STARRED review



 

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