I found this to be a very interesting take on the issues facing my generation. I've also noted the reviews seem to be mainly positive from Millennial readers and mostly negative from Boomer readers. Not surprising.

An odd take on a compelling subject, whereby the greed of a generation was apparently caused by liberals in government gone wild. A shame the author chose to drown this important topic in the partisan bathtub.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of the book.

This book is a GREAT overview of the various decisions members of the boomer generation have made that's had an effect on my generation's attempts to find our footing. It breaks down the pros and cons of various approaches, is critical of MULTIPLE administrations (not just the ones you'd expect), and takes the time to call out that we shouldn't fully villify the generations that came before. I think the later part of the book suffers a bit as the author tries really hard to say Not All Millennials Are Democratic Socialists (the author identifies himself as conservative) in a way that doesn't really add anything to his previous arguments, and the conclusion feels a little tossed off after the robustness of the chapters that come before it. Overall, this does a great job of highlighting how we got in this mess and the paths future generations need to take to start cleaning it up.

I first want the author, Joseph Sternberg, to know that I probably highlighted half of his book.

A seemingly fair approach to the issue of how Millennials have been hamstrung in terms of the job market and various policies (Sternberg identifies as a conservative several times in his work). There are pros and cons given to several administrations, and, while some of his statements could be construed as too clinical (there's a suggestion to overtake the green belt section of London to allow for more housing in one chapter), it's only to serve a finer point: That, given the current situation and the current path taken, this generation might have to choose which hill they want to die on.

Great care appears to have been taken toward the front to lay out precisely how we reached this point, why the Boomers have possibly behaved the way they have (in a fiscal sense), and then there's the dive into just how screwed Millennials are. Stats upon stats upon stats are heaved onto the pages, lest the reader think that Sternberg came ill-prepared. There's frequent pauses to remind that we shouldn't directly vilify the Boomer generation, as some of these measures were borne of thoughtlessness for the future (e.g. to address hot-button issues, kick "cans" down the road), but examples steeped in greed are easy to spot (I'd like to think that Sternberg put a bow on some of them to earmark it for your reading pleasure, if he didn't express his opinion directly).

As the Millennial generation, according to this book, are experiencing a stunted growth due to restricted job opportunities, uneven reward (or even punishment) for pursuing higher education and the debt that accompanies it, choked-up housing markets, and being footed a bill to take care of the aging Boomers (who are greater in numbers, less healthy (i.e. higher health costs), and retiring pretty soon, if not already), we're given a lot to ruminate on.

As I admittedly to not know nearly enough to think of any rebuttal to any of the issues, I would be interested in hearing the flip-side of this conversation; at any rate, there's an incredible amount of information in here that's great to absorb.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Perseus Books, and PublicAffairs for the advance read.

I really enjoyed this book, the characters were well developed. It had an interesting plot. I would be interested in reading more