Stuck: Why We Can't (or Won't) Move On

A brilliantly written tour through many lives—and a nation— stranded at the crossroads.

In Stuck the author of the highly praised Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto identifies a rather striking social trend: many people are stuck. Be it in the wrong relationship, the wrong career, the wrong town, or with the wrong friends, some of them even say they want to make a change but . . . somehow . . . never get the job done.

A self-described “adolescent in size-ten shoes who is also a happily married homeowner with a master’s degree,” Anneli Rufus knows whereof she speaks. In this book, she draws on her own life experience as well as interviews with others who are also—in some way or another, and to differing degrees—immobilized. Tracing the many subtle ways in which American culture often conspires to keep us stalled, Rufus delivers a long-awaited diagnosis for our day and age: stuck. But there can be a light at the end of the tunnel; Rufus also tells the stories of people who managed to become unstuck and of others who, after much reflection, decided that where they are is best. After all, she says: “What looks to you like paralysis looks to others like passion. What looks to you like a rut, others would call commitment, true absorption in a topic, a relationship, a career, a pursuit, a place. What looks to you like boredom, others call commitment. And even contentment.”

Stuck is a wise and passionate exploration of the dreams we hold dearest for ourselves—and the road to actually achieving them.