Anne Helen Petersen

If you believe there’s a better way to live than refreshing your work email until you close your eyes at night, you’ll appreciate this deep dive into how workers relate to the office.

Based on a historical review of workforce expectations, journalists Warzel and Petersen focus on four key areas for strategic change to improve working conditions, employee satisfaction, and wellness… Prior to the pandemic, worker burnout, transience, and dissatisfaction were culminating in a call for change. The pandemic and remote-work chaos heightened awareness of the need for change, the returnto work now occurring provides the opportunity, and this book provides a roadmap.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Whether you’re looking for solutions or just looking to feel seen, Can’t Even is a can’t-miss.

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.

[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.

Trenchant and well-researched...an incisive portrait of a generation primed for revolt.

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.

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.

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

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.

'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.

A sharp critique....It is my sincere hope that every millennial reads [this book].

Petersen interrogates our culture with precision and nuance.

Supremely thoughtful…snappy and compelling…[Petersen’s essays] highlight the paradoxical expectations American culture places on women, in particular, the mixed messages it sends: the ‘you can do anything,’ rubbing awkwardly against the ‘you can’t do everything.’

A timely and essential read…Petersen’s analytical skills are as vigorous [and] her prose and reporting are entertaining.

Petersen writes with equal amounts of rigor and empathy…her point feels like a warning bell: Our cultural lens on celebrity women reflects back on women en masse. We don’t have to love their unruliness, but we need to change the attitudes that so narrowly define them.

Anne Helen Petersen’s gloriously bumptious, brash ode to non-conforming women suits the needs of this dark moment. Petersen’s careful examination of how we eviscerate the women who confound or threaten is crucial reading if we are ever to be better.

In a time when women are under constant attack, I am so grateful for Anne Helen Petersen’s sharp and topical book. Petersen nails the magnetism of women who break boundaries and the punishment that often comes along with it. All women will see a bit of themselves in the ‘unruly.’

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud could not be coming out at a more perfect time. As society is reacting to and still grappling with the ever-changing understanding of feminism, Petersen’s book holds a mirror up and shows us how we view women and ourselves. It’s equal parts rallying cry and heady examination; and it’s my new best friend, who empowers me to kick butt in life.

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud is an oasis in a sea of hot takes, a set of crisp essays on the provocateurs who fascinate and enrage us. With warmth and wit, Anne Helen Petersen celebrates the power of being just a little too much, seeking the rebel inside the trainwreck.

Bold and empowering…an engaging exploration of the women celebrities who are defying stereotypes and redefining what it means to be female.

[Petersen’s] research and observations are eye-opening…but the best part of the book is Petersen’s devotion to intersectionality, which is all too often missing from discussions about feminism. For anyone who considers themselves a feminist, this book is a must-read.

[A] trenchant and intersectional analysis of the celebrity narratives we create around famous women who, in some way, defy the cultural scripts of classed and raced femininity … [Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud] will be appreciated by anyone seeking to understand the vicious social judgement that women—particularly high-profile, successful women—continue to face in our era.

Thought-provoking…Through incisive analysis of the ways in which contemporary society polices femininity, Petersen reveals the fraught relationship between women and celebrity. A sharp, compelling collection of social and cultural criticism.

Engaging…Petersen is an author for our age.

Insightful.

Clear and convincing…Although Petersen’s book benefits from intelligent analysis of archival research, she writes with the verve of an enthusiast.

Terrific and thoughtful and fascinating.

Smart, relevant, and fun…think TMZ with a PhD.

Compulsively readable.

[This] dishy book delivers the juicy anecdotes readers crave.

Dishy as hell.

Not merely a rehash of salacious old Hollywood gossip, Petersen revivifies flattened images of Hollywood icons…Wide-ranging and surprisingly thoughtful.

Brisk and lively.