Burnt Out Reader: A Book Review of Can't Even by Anne Helen Petersen
Everyone wants to talk about millennials, especially millennials. We are burning down America, we annoy boomers, we are way too sensitive, we aren’t reproducing enough, and we influence the elections. It is no wonder the millennial generation has become a topic covered by many American writers.
I wanted to know why we matter. What started as a culture piece, the article “How Millenials Became the Burnout Generation,” turned into a book on my monthly reading list. The national attention unearthed by that article persuaded Anne Helen Petersen to write Can’t Even two rapid-fire years ago.
Can’t Even is a topical study of the generational resurgence of burnout. Readers may be surprised to learn that burnout has been documented in every generation since the mid-1800s. So how did we get the crowning title, The Burnout Generation? Millennials are scrapping for a dream we did not fabricate, endorse, nor frankly understand. Yet we are shoving the collective forward and tripping over one another to do it.
While reading Can’t Even one factoid did not surprised me, it was reassuring to hear the measured fallout of our hustle. I appreciated when Petersen broke into my head with her opinions. Occasionally her colorful language splashes onto the page. She is right, though, a logical thinker still has a heart, and when the presented data adds up it should infuriate us. The system is bullshit.
Petersen did pull the classic millennial shortcoming; she over justified her argument. Can’t Even pulls out all the stops and leaves no rock unturned. At 2 am when I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about work, I would reach over to the bedside table and read this troubling account, assuring myself every 28-year-old American is where I am. I didn’t need Petersen to detail the medical calamity in our country, I wanted her to say we should care because this is 7 million people’s lives. Instead she laid down stats and stories and case studies and books on the altar of proof. I don’t blame her even for a microsecond. There is no way in a gazillion years I would present a nonfiction book without every angle analyzed. A publisher wouldn’t accept it either.
But what if she had been bold enough to throw convention out?
I probably learned more about other generations in Can’t Even than about millennials which helped me empathize. If the media had their way, each generation would turn in on itself and rewrite the American dream every thirty years. Just look at the SNL sketch about how the different generations are handling the COVID-19 crisis.
I was turned off by the ever present tone of cynicism and annoyance used by Petersen in her writing. She well established from page one all everything is broken and she stays there…. the entire book.
When Petersen writes, “You can draw a crooked line between burnout, and the despair and existential crises that accompany it, and white nationalism, virulent online misogyny, and neofacism.” I think the crooked line in her argument is more like a circle, all encompassing. In her concluding chapter, Conclusion: Burn It Down, she chalks all of societies ills on burnout.
I need to think more on this, but that conclusion feels wrong and minimizes the problem. While I support Petersen’s decision to, “From its original conception as an article to now, has never been about telling you what to do,” she counters her premise with a final list of to dos.
Can’t Even is a book to be passed over. Petersen has compiled a beast of a book. Can’t Even is well researched and supported on the micro and macro scale. She has curated personal experiences right alongside large, clinical studies while assuring us one is not more important than the other. In fact, the individual experience only colors in the outline of the collective experience. We wouldn’t be able to see the picture without both parts.
This culturally significant book has value and yet I believe it needs to stay off your too be read list because it only adds to the noise around our exhaustion problem. As an overachiever, I can fully recognize my sad efforts to take my own advice. However, Petersen’s salty attitude and harsh criticism of society must be balanced with a strong, consistent response. Can’t Even did not offer readers desiring, even hoping desperately, fresh air. The concluding chapter was so empty and sounded like another weak chorus of vote more, shop small, take mental health days, listen to your body, etc.
As someone who believes in God, the refrain of why our society is broken resounded in my mind. Petersen stated, “We can come to the spectacular and radical understanding that we are each valuable simply because we are.” She stands inches away from the canvas that she cannot recognize the full picture: We are valuable because we were created to be valuable by the highest source of value in this world.
If we want to talk about burnout as a condition, then let’s cut to the chase of why burnout happens. We cannot fuel ourselves. Something has to go back into our tanks to keep running at full speed. A fire with endless fuel is much harder to extinguish. Does that mean we keep striving and pushing to our limits? Absolutely not. To recognize our boundaries is to understand we were made to be connected to a fuel source.
If you would like to talk to me more about this please email me, drop me a comment, or send out a question on my social media page. To discover the path to living out your best story you should not have to burnout, live exhausted, or crash.
Petersen’s final words are a smoldering threat. “Underestimate us at your peril: We have so little left to lose.”
I wasn’t frightened, just really bummed out.
Interested in other books about millennials? Check out some of these titles recommended by Petersen:
