Description:

"The game is rigged. The system is broken. And we're all out here trying to win at Monopoly while three people already own all the properties, and also they wrote the rules."

In his most observant work yet, Michael W.G. Berman moves from the action-oriented advice of his previous hits to tackle the one thing every American is currently doing: complaining. From coastal cities to the "flyover" plains, KVETCH: A Cultural Atlas of American Complaints maps out the specific brand of suffering unique to every demographic in 2026.

This isn't just a list of grievances; it's a high-definition look at a society in a state of "tragicomedy." Berman expertly deconstructs the universal "Kvetch" that connects us all?the feeling of working harder than ever while the math simply isn't mathing. Inside this atlas, you will explore the "Complaint Zones":

• Gen Z (The Digital Tundra): Navigating the anxiety of actual environmental collapse while being told to focus on a geometry test.
• Millennials (The Burnout Belt): Dealing with the "Side Hustle" scam where survival is rebranded as entrepreneurship and dating apps feel like psychological warfare.
• Gen X (The Forgotten Plains): The "invisible" middle children supporting aging parents and adult children simultaneously.
• Boomers (The Get Off My Lawn Highlands): Clinging to relevance in an economy they no longer recognize.
• The Essential Workers: The "backbone of society" who are treated as heroes when convenient and disposable when not.

Whether you are a New American navigating a bureaucratic nightmare or a remote worker who hasn't worn real pants in three years, KVETCH offers a space to feel seen, heard, and validated. It is a call to move past the "everything sucks" manifesto and realize that if we stop fighting over whose "hard" is harder, we might actually start fixing the systems that made it this way.