Boomsday is referred to in the book as the day that a majority of the Baby Boomers would begin retiring, thrusting the United States into economic trouble and the raising of taxes to compensate for Social Security.

Cassandra Devine, "a morally superior twenty-nine-year-old PR chick" and moonlit angry blogger, incites generational warfare when she proposes that the financially nonviable Baby Boomers be given incentives (free Botox, no estate tax) to kill themselves at 70.

With the aide of public relations guru Terry Tucker, Devine and Jepperson attempt to ride "Voluntary Transitioning" all the way to the White House, over the objections of the Religious Right and the Baby Boomers, deeply offended by the demonstrations taking place on the golf courses of their retirement resorts.

Jane and Michael Stern of The New York Times compared Boomsday to Saturday Night Live and the works of Kurt Vonnegut, although both comparisons were unfavorable, noting that Buckley's novel "might make you long for the days when puerile humor wasn't confused with genuine wit.

"[2] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, in praising the book, that "even at its breeziest, Boomsday features wickedly plausible ingredients like a Cape Town-to-Rio Rolex Challenge for yachts and a boomer-advocacy organization whose office lobby has been given the brushed-steel look of a Sub-Zero refrigerator.