Book cover of Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone

Book description

A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives.

You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life."…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Work Won't Love You Back as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This whole book is mindblowing, laying out the ways that the success of our current economic system of work is built on the unpaid labor of women and people of color. The section on nonprofits is essential reading for anyone working or volunteering in the sector. This is not a treatise for not working or quiet quitting; it is a case study of why we work and how we can work better, and surprise surprise, it also comes back to understanding the economics of power and privilege, who is benefiting, and who is being left behind. This book gave me…

From Kristen's list on changing the way you change the world.

If you love Work Won't Love You Back...

Book cover of The Rosewood Penny

The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields,

2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!

The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.

On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…

Want books like Work Won't Love You Back?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Work Won't Love You Back.

Browse books like Work Won't Love You Back

Book cover of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Book cover of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
Book cover of Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,343

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Work Won't Love You Back, you might also like...

Book cover of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman

Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman by Alexis Krasilovsky,

Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.

A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…

Book cover of Malcolm Before X

Malcolm Before X by Patrick Parr,

Malcolm Before X is about finding a way to continue moving forward after everything has been taken from you. While in prison, Malcolm Little discovered the power of reading and found a way to transform his character and become a better man. This half-biography focuses on that transformation, especially his…

5 book lists we think you will like!