X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking

by Jeff Gordinier

Read Jeff Gordinier's posts on the Penguin Blog

In this simultaneously hilarious and incisive "manifesto for a generation that's never had much use for manifestos," Gordinier suggests that for the first time since the "Smells Like Teen Spirit"breakthrough of the early 1990s, Gen X has what it takes to rescue American culture from a state of collapse. Over the past twenty years, the so-called "slackers"have irrevocably changed countless elements of our culture-from the way we watch movies to the way we make sense of a cracked political process to the way the whole world does business.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Sociology, Pop Culture, Humor, Politics, Social Science

236 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Jeff Gordinier is the food and drinks editor of Esquire and a frequent contributor to the New York Times. A product of Southern California and a graduate of Princeton University, he wrote 2008’s X Saves the World and co-edited the 2015 essay collection Here She Comes Now. He lives north of New York City with his wife, Lauren Fonda, and his four children.

Reviews

[Shelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm writing this nearly eight years after reading X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking; when it first came out, we had just recently elected our first Generation X president, and, collectively suffused with all the attributes for which this book praises our generation, the U.S. and much of the rest of the world was filled with hope and optimism headed into the future.

Oh, but how far we have fallen. Here we are about to inaugurate another Baby Boomer president (out of two Boomer choices), whose multitude of drawbacks have nothing to do with his age, the implications of which have plunged the U.S. and the world into unprecedented fear, anger, and hopelessness. The main players in this incomprehensible turn of events appear to still be the proverbial "old white men" of Boomer age and older, along with the disaffected and somewhat clueless Millennials. Once again, Xers are the generation who fell between the cracks; everything this book charged us with and hoped for us having unceremoniously slipped away after such a promising start in assuming the mantle of leadership that it was just sort of chronologically our turn to take up.

Our historical definition as the generation of the ironic eye roll is now pretty much sealed. Read this book to appreciate what could have been – what should have been – as our guarded hearts close back in on themselves and we become the "Fuck This Shit; We're Moving To Thailand" Generation.

(Bulk of that missing star off because Lauryn Hill wasn't quite as important or emblematic as author Jeff Gordinier would try to lead us to believe. But hey. Picking nits.)

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will pretty much listen to anyone who references the Replacements or Douglas Coupland. The focus of this giant essay is that X is still cool and vital. Being sandwiched in between the lame, culture-hogging and past-their-prime boomer generation, and the vapid, techno-dependent, Amererican-Idolizing "millennials," it's hard not to agree with him. One of his main points is illustrated by the notion that our generation was raised on multiple viewings of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," which ingrained in our little minds the idea that selling out=bad. All those other shits got their comeuppance, but Charlie kept his motherfucking street cred. Actually, I always hated that movie, but I like his point. The book got kind of goofy in the last third, talking about some eccentric philanthropists, like some guy who is trying to teach everyone to turn their front lawns into crops. The only problem is that Gordinier's definition of the generation seems to only include whites who like rock music. (There were a few pages devoted to Lauryn Hill, who was knocked out of popularity by the onset of the teen-pop explosion of '99.)

[Nicholas Ozment · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with many of the points Jeff makes, and share his outlook on issues surrounding contemporary pop culture. I find myself quoting from the book a lot; observations like these are so quotable:

"If Gen-X music tended to sound as though it came from a specific place—Seattle or Manchester, Compton or Minneapolis or the South Bronx—the new millennial soundtrack came across as geographically blank. It didn’t merely sound like something you would buy at Wal-Mart, it sounded like Wal-Mart itself: cheap, clean, massive, censored, and generic."

" [T:]hose who don’t fit in have given us some of the greatest music in the national songbook—off the top of my head I’m thinking of Johnny Cash,Billie Holiday,Bob Dylan,Phil Spector,the Ramones,John Doe and Exene Cervenka,Nile Rodgers,Patti Smith,Lauryn Hill,Elliott Smith,Kurt Cobain,Alejandro Escovedo,Marvin Gaye,Lucinda Williams,Jimi Hendrix,Steely Dan,Guided by Voices,the White Stripes—but on _American Idol_ any one of these visionary malcontents with their wobbly vocal cords and their moody dispositions would have been trotted out to the firing squad."

Or this observation on visiting Woodstock '94: "I saw how an entire language of liberation and resistance had been watered down into meaningless commercial goop." As Thomas Frank put it, the "commodification of dissent."

And a few words of my own: There are still those of us who look beyond the soulless "product" churned out by conglomerate hit-makers, who don't dance goose-step to the choreography of interchangeably plastic lip-synchers, who are not mesmerized by the latest celebrity gossip "news" about people who are famous simply for being famous. As Gordinier notes, "love and heartache and rage and despair [are:] worthy subtexts for the art of song." In our art, we still look for soul.

Pop culture is not all that this book is about; it closes with several examples of Gen Xers who are "changing the world" not with huge, idealistic "change the world" programs, but in small grassroots ways. Organic gardening, aesthetically pleasing architecture for poor communities, that sort of thing. He also makes the salient argument that Gen X has used irony as a wonderful weapon against commodification and the status quo. Not with love-ins and picket-signs, not explicitly striving for the boomer utopia, but by deflating political and corporate absurdity with rapier wit (for examples, see John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and The Onion). It was Gen Xers who created file sharing programs and sites like Youtube, giving the rest of us ways to do an end-run around the corporate stranglehold on traditional media and the arts.

How long, I wonder, will we be able to get away with it?

[Jennifer Arnold · Rating 2 out of 5]

On one hand, I sometimes think a lot of this generational stuff is pop culture nonsense. On the other hand, I sometimes want to tell the boomers (peace! love! the 60s!) and the millenials (Look at me! MySpace! I'm special!) to shut it. Seriously. SHUT. IT. I'm tired of hearing about Woodstock, and at least I have an attention span significant enough to read an actual book.

Gordinier's point is that because Gen X is a smaller generation trapped beneath the behemoth boomer and millenial generations, we got shafted in terms of attention and prominence, and in terms of the world we were left (Watergate, gas crises, three recessions, two Iraq wars, and the dot com bust), but have quietly found a way to prevent the world from sucking entirely. You can thank Xers for everything from Radiohead to the Daily Show, and both do keep everything from sucking. Mostly opinion and little research, it was still a fun trip through some generational hallmarks - "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Douglas Coupland, and Slacker - which I still remember vividly for best potential band name ever, Conspiracy A-Go-Go.

And while every generation thinks the next one sucks or are degenerate morons (Elvis, anyone?), I do worry about a generation (the millenials) that seems to lack any understanding of what it means to be a sell out. You'll learn, little snowflake, you'll learn.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read that really explains what happened to Gen X. The strange thing was, I woke up one day and no longer was my generation THE generation. The author explains that we're smaller in number and therefore, have less purchasing power. Also, we're such cynics, how fun is it to market to a bunch of smart ass cynics?

A good discussion point would be what our kids will grow up to be like. Will they be cheerier than the bubble-gum-pop Millenials or will they be just as cynical as us GenXers? One could only hope ...

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh...my...god! If, after reading this book, you did not feel affirmed in all the choices you have made in your life and rededicated to never doing something that sucked again, then you really aren't a member of that generation. Like Gordinier stated in his book, it's not as much a matter of age but your relationship to the world. My wife and I founded and run a professional, not for profit, theatre company. Our first board of directors was made up of a majority of baby boomers who could not understand why we made the choices we made, in terms of choosing plays. This book helps me understand where my distrust of mainstream popular culture comes from and I have recommended that all of our board of director members read this book to understand it themselves. Either get on board or get out of the effin way!

Loved this book and will read again and again. It will become bedtime reading for my kids, age 6 and 3. I will reference it in meetings. My wife and I will read it loud to each other on rainy Sunday afternoons. Quotes will be read at my wake. This book kicks ass.

[Jason McKinney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two phenomenal books in a row...all I can say is WOW! After 'The Way of the World', it comes as a complete surprise that I would so soon read another great one. Jeff Gordinier dissects the Gen X initial impact and how it lingers (Thankfully!) a decade and a half after the release of Reality Bites, long seen as one of the few mainstream pop culture touchstones of the X movement. Socialogically entertaining, funny and smart as hell, this one uses a great amount of cultural guideposts to make its point. These include everything from Barack Obama and The Replacements to Henry James and James Brown. 'X Saves' made me feel alternately sad, hopeful, smart and entertained, all in nearly equal portions. That's an equation a book rarely has and this one provides it in spades.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great five-page article spooled out into a book.
The first chapter or so are hilarious, and I laughed out loud many times.
Also learned that I could call myself a Gen Xer, which I didn't really know. Too young to be a Baby boomer, sure, but I was sort of proud of not being part of a defined group. Turns out this confirms my X credential.
As the author beats his topic to death, he throws in lots of details about 90s pop culture and rock concerts. I was too busy making a living, getting married and doing the family thing to pay much attention. Others who were more hip to that may enjoy the rest of the book more.
The title alone is good value.

[Michelle]

Loved it. Ok, all of you born between 1964 and 1977, grab this book and read it. Things are not as bad as they seem for those of us caught between aging hippie parents and Generation Jackass. Yeah, we're sarcastic. ironic, and dark, but we are also amazing. This book made me nostalgic and fired me up. I won't change the world but I can change my immediate surroundings. I could completely relate to much of what the author expressed. Slackers unite! And grab a copy of this book and start reading.

[Damon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as preachy as I expected, and yet, inspiring and reassuring for someone like me, who often feels completely out of touch with the culture around me. If you were born in the late sixties or early seventies, you should check it out. You'll revel in the nostalgia and take heart in your future.

[George Hunger · Rating 2 out of 5]

X Saves the World is a book written by a Gen Xer and written for Gen Xers. As a fellow traveller of the same underwhelmed and under appreciated generation, I have to say I had a hard time relating to the author on several fronts. Perhaps it was his fascination with Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and the impact it had on American society...or maybe it was his love for the jarring effects of off beat movies like Pulp Fiction and Being John Malkovich...I dunno. Either way the author is a good writer but the content was just too negative, cutting, and jaded for my taste, and for that I only give it 2 stars.

[adrienna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really disappointed in this book. The author is pretentious, incredibly pretentious. To be fair, I am highly suspicious of "generational" talk anyhow - I tend to find it stereotypical and insulting. The beginning was kind of fun - lots of talk about what I remember of the 90s - but as the book moved on, I failed to see any point of its existence. The author definitely cherry-picked his events and pop culture that he felt defined Gen X. I only finished it because of my 2010 A-Z Titles challenge.

[David Rullo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely quick read that does what you'd expect--talk about the great things about being part of Generation X, explains some of the contributions we've added to culture and society and briefly touches on how we can continue to make an impact now that we've been surpassed in the media by the millennials.

Reading more like a long essay, Gordinier fills his writing with pop references and important Gen X'ers in the world of technology and business. The book is only a few years old but already some of it's references are out of date, for instance, MySpace is constantly referenced but I don't recall one reference to Facebook. Sadly, the book has to be read in light of the current political environment. Given that perspective it appears that we in Gen X may have lost, or at least gone dormant for the next few years after making so many positive changes.

I would definitely recommend this book if you are a fan of Seattle grunge, the movie Singles (or any of Cameron Crowe's other works), The Replacements, R.E.M....well you get the idea.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. Though I'm at the tail-end of Generation X, it's ethos and sensibilities and culture have always been mine. This was published on the eve of Barack Obama, and it's my sincere wish to read what Gordinier would write about Xers navigating the tides today.

It's probably not normally the sort of book that I would give five stars, but it spoke to me so clearly and directly that I couldn't help myself.

[Kate Sherrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

My best friend from college and I were just across the Hudson River from Saugerties, NY the weekend of Woodstock '94, snarling and sneering the whole time at what we'd been very, very sure was going to be a mountain of suck, the Baby Boomer Generation having yet another stab at putting us in our place. We passed around a cartoon that his co-worker had drawn of what Woodstock '94 should really be like: mohawked punk stick figures stomping hippies into the ground, black helicopters spraying machine gun fire, a mushroom cloud detonating on the horizon. It gave us even greater satisfaction than the news that came over local and national media as that foolish weekend wore on that it was exactly the giant corporate suckfest we'd figured it would be, that we were right.

The first third or so of Jeff Gorinier's book is a lot like that, a litany of memories and realities that fueled a bitterness that I had kind of forgotten I'd had.* And for that reason I almost put it aside, despite the recommendations of someone for whom I have more respect than just about anyone on the internet, the blogger who tweets as TamaranOrBust, who has quite an inspiring and interesting post on this topic.

Man, am I glad I stuck with this book, though. For the rest of it is an eye-opening, bumptious, raucous, giddy celebration of what we have done while being ignored and what we might still have in us to do. I poured a glass of wine, cranked up a '90s alternative music "station" on Slacker Radio, and smiled my way through the rest of it.

I've been hearing bits here and there of late about how it's time my generation (born in 1970, I'm an Xer by pretty much every measure anyone has suggested) came out of hiding and started taking another stab at keeping what we care about alive in this world: authentic culture, new and old; the right to live a life on the margins without giving up having a say in matters (the analogy of hypermodern chess comes to mind); the right not to be Boomers or Millennials eagerly participating uncritically in a hive mind serving interests that really aren't our own.

But rather than a call to arms or a lecture about the need to start new causes or take on the Boomers who, let's face it, aren't ever going to let go of their economic and cultural dominance while they're on this side of the dirt (but are perfectly willing to finish throwing our parents, the Silents, under the bus, and have found in Paul Ryan the perfect GenX patsy cheerleader to help them do it), Gordinier is more interested in pointing out to us that what we're already doing is (cough) changing the world, by saving the best bits of everything that has come before it it, one hyperfocused hobbyist at a time (like, say, that wonderful soul who put all of that Byzantine Secular Classical Music on YouTube -- to say nothing of those wonderful souls who invented YouTube!), and continually innovating ways to keep bouncing forward all that good stuff AND making new stuff of our own.

And yes, part of what made reading this book such a pleasure for me was the way it forced me to look at how I'm conducting myself through my early 40s, especially as an artist, and to realize that what I'm doing really does matter, even if mass culture doesn't understand or respect it. You guys do. And that's plenty!

Really, all I can think of right now, sipping wine and bouncing around my room to Nirvana and Soundgarden, is in The Two Towers (film or book, it doesn't matter, but the moment in the film is nicely done) when Gandalf talks about how the Ents are about to wake up and realize they are strong.

Might just be that we need to pay a little more attention to what our peers are doing and tune out the screech of the Boomillenials a bit more. I've gotten really, really good at the latter, but I could do so much better with the former.

*I had an idyllic, out-of-sync childhood in rural Wyoming, the land the Boomers kind of forgot. That's not to say there weren't any of that age group, far from it, but in a place that takes pride in slogans like "come to Wyoming and turn your clock back 30 years" even the 30-somethings of my childhood were pretty much just Silent Generation types with less grey hair and fewer wrinkles. Us kids had it really, really good in Saratoga, WY in the 1970s, beneficiaries of a sort of Silent Generation conspiracy to filter out most of the crap of the larger world and bring us the good stuff. The Utah Symphony played concerts in our crappy school gymnasium. An amazing old-timey historical tent show called Chatauqua came through every summer. The Texas Opera company staged full on performances in that same crappy gym where the Utah Symphony played and where from time to time mid-level touring ballet companies performed, too. I had an almost-complete collection of Horizon magazines at my disposal. We had a river to splash around in, bike trails to get us anywhere but keep us (mostly) out of car traffic, and a series of truly extraordinary schoolteachers who taught us how to make stone-age hunting tools and build snow caves along with our three Rs. So I was ill-prepared for the real world of the East Coast, where the hostility of Boomers was waiting to dump bucket after bucket of freezing, stinging salt water over my head before I'd even gotten my bearings. I endured it for almost a decade before deciding I'd had enough and moved back to Wyoming, where I was welcomed back with open arms. I tried to give a new generation the kind of advantages I'd enjoyed in my same hometown, but I didn't have enough co-conspirators to achieve the critical mass to pull it off. Ah, me. But now, here I still am, and now there is the internet. Sing praise, Gaudeamus.

[Daniel Archer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended for anyone interested in America’s Gen X, Baby Boomers, or Millennials.

I love my generation and am always glad to read/watch an analysis of what many now think of as the “forgotten” generation. Despite this book’s insights and humor - and there is much of both - it is hard to ignore there is nary a mention of LGBT, feminist or progressive activists. Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matters weren’t around at the time it was published, but other movements were. Also, a disproportionate amount of attention to his own memories and experiences (straight white male) tend to skew his analysis. Regardless, a fun and interesting read.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this book is a few years old, the observations and insight into my generation are still relevant. Excellent book. I enjoyed it. I wish Generation X was recognized more, or at all, by society. I feel like Gen X has more power (financially and politically) than we are given credit for as the media obsesses over millenials and baby boomers.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 2 out of 5]

So it's December and I'm needing a book who's title starts with the letter x (and z, I still haven't read a z). And this is what I find. So I self identify as Gen X, whatever that means.

And this book is dumb. But then again Ready Player One is nostalgic and dumb and I loved that book.

This book is also ranty. And has three long non-chapters.

It was interesting to look back and see what someone else saw as the reality of a smaller generation. What the author saw as most important, as un-dodgeable - much of which I dodged - I remember the first time I really considered Smells Like Teen Spirit - it was a cover by Tori Amos - and then a dance party in Moulin Rouge.

This was a book that among other things talked about Google's former mission statement of Don't Be Evil. Obama was probably going to be the next president. Trump as President, Covid was in the future.

This book is a review of an era but a moment in time.

It is opinionated and a bit silly. But looking back is interesting. And hard to do well, and this was not done well.

[We Are All Mad Here · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I just don't have the generational team spirit required to despise other generations quite so thoroughly as Jeff Gordinier does. Nor do I feel nearly as superior to "the masses" -- there are frequent mentions of "the masses." Supposedly, Generation X is above all that. We don't conform, we cringe at the concept of changing the world, we idolize Kurt Cobain for all he represented while we hate Americal Idol, for the same reason. We like things called "indie" quite a bit. We are so outside of the mainstream. And so on.

Questions for the author: is the mainstream really so bad? And since when does one man's tastes define a whole generation?

I'm not sure where changing the world came into the picture. I think that was a good-sounding title that has little to do with the actual text of the book. I kind of hate-read after the first 20 or so pages, occasionally stopping to make scathing comments to the author in my head.

Read at your own peril.

[Elspeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am also reading "Zero Hour for Generation X" at the same time and I much prefer that book. This one is mostly about popular culture in the 1990s (and I am a huge pop culture fan, and a fan of the music he describes) and it was soooo boring. It really seemed to be more of an autobiography than anything to unite the "generation" (read: demographic) that was born between 1965-1980???

I slogged through maybe 1/3 then I gave up. There are so few books about Generation X that it was disappointing that almost half of them (!) weren't good.

Oh, and if anyone in another "generation" wants to hear about how *all* generations are picked on when they are in their 20s (not just the millennials), I read "Generation X Goes to College" in the 90s and oh boy is that an entertaining read about just how "entitled" and "stupid" Generation X is/was. Sound familiar?

[Su · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a young Xer, but an Xer I remain, so this book had me laughing out loud at lot as he lampoons the more irritating foibles of our surrounding generations. And then the book takes a turn and instead of only poking fun, also takes a look at some of the Xers who are making the world a less sucky place, but are doing it without trumpet blasts and press releases and "everybody's doing it"s. Really enjoyable read, if you fall into this particular demographic. Older and younger folks are not likely to enjoy it as much.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of this really made me "amen!" esp. the Millenial and Boomer bashing (something I've been feeling for some time but never felt articulated in the media). But the overemphasis on Nirvana was a little much (John Donne? Really?) and lost some of my interest, much as I love Nirvana. Ultimately, though, this book made me proud to be a member of Generation X and that is something. Yay, X.

[Lori S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 stars

How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking - I don't know, can we? I'm all for the smaller movements, of course, playing on the edges and gently steering people toward new ideas and paths, but do we Gen Xes actually have the voice loud enough to be heard over the Tweets? This book left me with more questions than answers to be honest.

[Smiley III · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, obviously, this is not one of the best books I have ever read in terms of its organization, it's structure, the writing itself, etc, etc. It shouldn't get a five-star rating from me given the wonderful books I've read recently.

HOWEVER... for a person of a certain age, this book is awesome. I loved it from start-to-finish. As a person who has watched some around me typify the very worst of the Boomer generation (self-indulgence, lack of planning, expectation that someone will always save them), I cherished and laughed my ass off at the pillorying given to the Boomers, particularly in the first part of the book.

When going down my list of transgressions of that particular generation, Gordinier's list of gripes and sarcastic swipes hit my checklist one-by-one. I thought it was spot-on, hilarious and cynical - much like I would like to think all of us Gen-Xer's are.

This book has some age to it, and I am reading it WAY too late. Facebook was hardly even mentioned in the final sections regarding social media for Christ's sakes. And of course it was written much too late to implement my favorite recent lexicon in the English language, "OK, Boomer." I wish he had known of these things when he wrote this.

And not all of his points are home runs, particularly, in my view, regarding the Millenials - a bunch that I personally find have been unfairly maligned, mostly by Boomers who like to accuse everyone else of the things they worst embody. And as some other reviewers have pointed out, this is essentially a long essay.

But, as I said earlier, I laughed and nodded and smiled throughout the book. It's not ever going down in the classics of literature or sociology or anything else, and it's not meant to, because we are Gen Xer's and f--k that. I loved the book and the premise and the delivery nonetheless.

A+.

[Daniel Ben-Horin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as research for a novel. It is flat-out wonderfully written. Its premise seems to me true for some part of the generation--no generation is any one thing--but I'll throw in a couple of highlights to whet your enthusiasm about the excellent prose:

"The dot-com boom spoke to us. It mesmerized us, it flattered us, it whispered in our ears about paradigm shifts and monetized eyeballs and hierarchy-free, pet-friendly office spaces. In a delicate way it preyed on everything the Xer believed in. The dot-com boom reached out a gloved hand and said: Luke, I am your father..."

and

"...take the words below, hire a chimpanzee to string them together at random and you will come up with the typical opening paragraph from any 1993 issue of any news magazine in America: slackers , Whiners, 20 somethings, national debt, Social Security, the Brady Bunch, Star Wars, shrinking opportunities , Grunge, Seattle, coffeehouse, Wendy Cobb, lead or leave, zines, purple hair, tattoos, piercings, TV, Prozac, lollapalooza, disenfranchise, Elizabeth Wurtzel, doc martens..."

and

"I don’t recall many of them talking explicitly about changing the world. They know that if they were to do that, they would set themselves up for a kind of karmic boomerang effect. We saw it with the previous crew, and we know what happens: as soon as you start blathering about changing the world, wham, there you are, squeezed in between Kenny Rogers and Huey Lewis, swaying your hips in the “We Are the World” video. ...If the boomers were really so committed to sticking it to The Man, why were they always overnighting The Man a memo about it?"

[Bruce Kirby]

As a proud Gen xer sitting here and writing this review on my laptop, listening to a vinyl reissue of Pearl Jam's Vitalogy, the closest that my generation has to a Dark Side of the Moon sipping an Old Fashioned, I am sorry to say this is a sad state of affairs even sadder when Gordiner penned this tribute to suckitude. The environment is teetering on extinction and we are going to follow it, Covid-19 has killed hundreds of thousands of people while some people still think that it's a deep state conspiracy, even while their loved ones are dying, their hasn't been this level of civil unrest in the streets because of police brutality since desegregation, the National Debt of most industrialized countries has gone off a cliff indebting my children and their children for the next couple of hundred years and the Boomers are upset because they can't go see a baseball game or have a pool party or gamble in a casino. Nobody told them the rest of us that the ME GENERATION will only end when they all become worm feed. This book decribes a general suckitude but they and we have taken it to a new level. When they dig up our remains in a couple of thousand years they will say as Bill Maher put it "We found a way to really f%$#@! this up"

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me laugh out loud so many times as it codifies so many conversations I've had with my fellow Xers about the late Boomers and their off-spring. It nails the stereotypes about them and about us. The stereotypes mind you: I know and love many Boomers (even of the later vintages) and many more Millennials. They're fantastic people stuck in generations of narcissists and nabobs. Gen X has some, too, yes. We're dealing in stereotypes here, people!

If you're looking for 4-5 pages devoted solely to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and how it briefly rescued music listeners from garbage noise, then yes to this book. If you want to read about how Colbert spoke truth to power in the most Gen X way possible at the WH Correspondent's Dinner, then yes to this book. If you want to think about Barack Obama as the Gen X President, then yes to this book.

Does the author make ridiculously over the top statements? Yes! But friends, he's being ironic. It's part of the joke.

So much good stuff in here. So many quality music references - a lot of art I missed because I wasn't in tune until a lot later then most - and movies. It does stretch into pretension at times, but again(!) that's the joke, y'all!

Nice work, Jeff.

[Jennifer Pletcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a non-fiction book where the author looks into the lives of Generation X. The Generation between Baby Boomers and the Millenials - he discusses what made this Generation what it was. From movies to music to stars of the day, he points out how this generation has had to move at a faster pace then any before it.

I liked some things about this book, but overall the author spent so much time just name dropping and discussing music genres that I quickly lost interest. There are some good lines and interesting parts, but overall it wasn't much of a novel about Generation X. Too much talk about bands - not enough talking about the generation itself and its regular people.

Pass

[Keri Sargent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this now is very bittersweet. Not only did Gen X lose a lot after Pres Obama's last term, but a lot of us bought into the system that is denigrated in the book. Think Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk. They got theirs, so fuck everyone else, right? And now Millennials and Gen Z are our only hope to get out of the capitalistic nightmare that Gen X ironically hated. Maybe that independent, cynical streak should have been a tad more idealistic, or at least kind. So instead of everyone out for themselves, we could have gotten more people involved in criticizing -- and changing -- a system that only works when a few are successful and everyone else pawns.