For The First Time In My Life, I Feel Actively Stupider For Having Read A Book. Yes, y’all, this book is *that* bad. This isn’t even “I disagree with this guy’s politics and he is hyper preachy throughout the text” level, though there is that too. This is “this dude cites things that have been repeatedly and conclusively not only actively disproven, but actually shown to be the exact opposite of what he claims” level bad. Truly literally everything this guy says promoting rent control? Actual economics conclusively proves that he is not only 100% wrong, but that indeed reality is exactly the opposite of what he claims in this text.
I mean, y’all, I’m absolutely flabbergasted by this book. I *wanted* it to be good. I *wanted* an expose of homelessness in America that I could shout from the rooftops proclaiming its brilliance and showing how far America has fallen – because we admittedly have. And yet while we have fallen, we’ve also raised the standard of living *even for our homeless* to levels never before seen in the history of humanity – and that is a level of hope that is sorely missing in Markee’s text here.
Instead, in this text, everyone who opposes outright pure Marxist economic theory is a racist Nazi monster who can’t possibly have a single redeeming quality. And yes, Markee actively and specifically calls someone he disagrees with a Nazi in this text, without providing any actual evidence at all that they had ever supported the actual Nazis. Further, Markee openly admits to stealing from a former employer in Austin, TX in this text *while never thinking he did anything wrong*.
My dear reader of my review, for literally years I have thought that a “gold mine” was my worst possible rating. It means that there is a speck of something redeemable in the text, but you have to shift through literal tons of detritus to find it.
I. Was. Wrong.
I need a new term for my worst possible rating, because this book officially goes well beyond any book that has ever earned my “gold mine” rating. I was not joking in the title here, I actively feel stupider for having read this book.
To the level that I can’t even recommend it even if you agree 100% with Markee’s politics, which he is extremely preachy on throughout this narrative. Because he is so easily proven wrong on so very many points, he will actively make you a worse debater and *less* actually informed on this topic from being so wrongly misinformed. Indeed, recommending this book in 2025 would be akin to recommending a book about germ theory from say the 13th century in 2025 – it would be so wrong it would actually harm you and potentially cause you to actively harm others due to how misinformed you would be from reading the book.
Not recommended. It should never have been written to begin with. And I truly hate to say that about any book – and never have before this one.
This review of Placeless by Patrick Markee was originally written on December 4, 2025.