I was genuinely intrigued by Quit Everything by Franco Berardi, but ultimately, I found this book frustrating and ended up not finishing it. From the opening pages, Berardi makes a bold, provocative start by sharing that he felt unsure about who to support in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict—a choice between the invader and the invaded. Right away, it becomes obvious that this book is designed to stir up controversy for the sake of attention, not insight.

In reality, this book barely contains any of what’s promised in the description. While it claims to address the struggles of current youth, especially their experiences with depression, this theme is only thinly touched upon. Instead, Quit Everything feels more like an exercise in stroking the author’s ego, with pages weighed down by philosophical jargon, dramatic language, and a “devil’s advocate” stance that serves little purpose other than to provoke.

Berardi’s approach feels self-important, overblown, and, ultimately, insubstantial. Instead of exploring meaningful dialogue, the book veers toward theatrics and grandiosity, with little engagement with the core issues it claims to examine. Some readers may find this style stimulating, but I found it exhausting and frustrating, with any real content drowned out by excessive philosophizing. While most of the time I thoroughly enjoy books that discuss current political or societal/sociological situations, this book wasn’t for me. And I imagine it will appeal most to those looking for provocation over substance.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This is an interesting approach, depression through ethics and could be helpful alongside therapy depending on the individual and their forms of depression, especially with the current affairs around the world today and the natural impact they must have on some. I also liked having the references at the end of each chapter instead of the end of the whole book.

In many ways, this book is a reflection of its times and presents some wise words. It is right in that we need to walk away from the hustle and the constant striving capitalism demands, refuse to destroy our bodies and psyches making more wealth for others, propping up the machine that destroying both us but the world as well.

But the problem is that this book is solely of its time. It has the message of “Quit, quit, quit,” but it doesn’t have much besides that. Once we’ve quit everything as the title suggests, what do we do next? It wouldn’t make much sense or accomplish much if once we’ve quit everything, we don’t have any idea what to do next. If we don’t have any ideas about what to do next, then we leave ourselves open to two possibilities: either once everything has crumbled to dust, we’ll only wind up rebuilding the same world we destroyed and it all starts again, or we leave an opening for some enterprising fascist to gain followers and implement the worst possible vision for humanity.

Maybe the writer didn’t have any intention of covering this aspect, but it still represents a major missed opportunity.

Franco Bifo Berardi has been once of the most provocative, influential and playful theorists of our times, since his writing started appearing in English about 15 years ago. Now as he approaches his mid-70s, he seems to be becoming increasingly depressed, a depression he associates with what he calls precaritization and the inhumanity of late capitalism. This has resulted in Quit Everything. How much you get our of reading the book will depend on how far you accept his assertion in the book's introduction that "Flight, abandonment, inaction, are the only behaviors that I consider ethically acceptable and strategically rational". Being Berardi, his range is wide and ambitious: some will argue with his diagnosis of "generalized autistic syndrome" in society in general; others will be amused by his commandeering of medical and psychological diagnoses for his own ends; still others will be irritated. My assessment is that, although Quit Everything sometimes gives the impression of an essay or article which has been over-extended to book length (with some repetitions), there is enough here to provoke us to thought and (resigned) resistance. Berardi is as ever full of acute observations and characterisations: "We must interpret depression not only as a symptom, but as an agent of subjectivation"; his image of a “Long Covid of the social mind”, and his use of the prescient work of Günther Anders and Mark Fisher are all engaging and thought-provoking.

Being Berardi, he anticipates many of these criticisms, for example in suggesting towards the end of the book that he asks young people who listen to him not to take him too seriously because his theorising is the product of a decaying brain - indeed the book can be read as an investigation of ageing from within. He also suggests that "we have finally reached the point when inactivity is more brainy (and more ethical) than activity", an observation which does not fit well with Berardi's compulsion to keep thinking and writing books like these. How you approach this apparent contradiction and his urgings towards inactivity and resignation, when resistance might be a more appropriate response, will probably colour how you receive his book. I got a lot out of it (as ever).