Gad Saad review draws attention to Suicidal Empathy
Quillette’s review of gad saad’s new 256-page book, Suicidal Empathy: Dying to be Kind, says the book is almost impossible to read. The review, titled Playing Gad, also says Saad’s central idea is a critique of empathy when it is not guided by rationality.
Gad Saad and Suicidal Empathy
The review identifies Saad as a Canadian commentator and marketing professor at Concordia University in Montreal. Broadside Books dated the book May 2026.
Saad calls empathy taken too far “suicidal empathy,” and the review says he objects to empathy and other emotions when they are not regulated by rationality. The book rails against “the orgiastic misfiring of one of our most noble virtues, empathy,” according to the review.
Jane, James, and the argument
The review opens with a hypothetical example involving homeowner Jane and homeless James. In that example, James starts to exploit and abuse Jane, which the review uses to lay out Saad’s warning about misplaced empathy.
That framing is part of why the review treats the book as hard work for the reader. The review says Saad repeatedly references his books, podcasts, talks, Twitter feuds, and contemporary politics, and says his previous book, The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense, also leaned on self-reference.
Saad’s style under review
The criticism goes beyond the book’s argument. The review says The Parasitic Mind included incessant references to Saad’s courage, dedication, and football skills in the introduction alone, while Suicidal Empathy is described as almost impossible to read.
The review also says Saad tends to conflate sarcasm with wit and repeat jokes rather than make them entertaining. For readers trying to understand the book’s public reception, that means the review is not only about empathy, but about whether Saad’s style helps or hinders the case he wants to make.
The next development is the book’s publication cycle: May 2026 is the date Broadside Books attached to Suicidal Empathy, and the review has already put its argument and its prose under public scrutiny.
