This was a great book, looking at life and our desire to leave our mark while presenting us with the most insane people and situations.
But seriously, I can only recommend it.

Argh. This book was maddening. Coming off the heels of  Generation X and  Microserfs, I suppose my expectations were pretty high but this really felt like the literary equivalent of bottoming out.

With All Families Are Pyschotic,  Douglas Coupland thrusts us into this absurdly over-the-top comically dismal present tense-ish Florida that just doesn’t ever seem to come together. It’s unreliably realistic that’s as much a future-proofed snapshot Now as it is an immediately dated fantasy of yesterday’s tomorrow.

Sure, there are a few choice lines but every time it seems like it is starting to ramp up, we discover that he is feeding us a false start. It was like vintage GenX-era Coupland was rearing his head every 10 pages or so, about to start the novel only to find that he had lapsed into … I don’t know, some feeble attempt at co-opting Oprah’s book club. It was like reading a book that hemorrhaged interest and the further I got, the more desperate I became to enjoy it. By page 201, I had my enthusiam defibrillator paddles out and was shocking myself. Clear! *BZZZT!* Is it good yet? No? Clear!

I suppose I am not sure what else to say about this one. The surreal nihilism of Generation X overlaid on the mortality subject matter? Mushroom clouds instead of pill caddies? Was I looking for Microserfs‘ sensitive onion layers of humanity trying on some new clothes? Costco lamentations instead of preposterous bullet wounds to the liver?

The mind reels.

[http://blog.founddrama.net/2007/07/al...]

Around the Year in 52 Books: 17. A book you expect to make you laugh.

This was a hilarious four star read until I decided to put it down for a month and then pick it up again. I only had 100 more pages but they managed to lower my rating a whole star down.

What I liked:
- The language is colloquial but Coupland managed to craft these amazing thoughtful sentences which makes you realize his ability as a writer. I was really impressed with how this wasn't pretentious at all.
- Loved how Coupland realistically acknowledged things like people only remembering bits of their past instead of in the movies where all incidents are remembered like they happened yesterday.
- Well-fleshed out characters with distinct personalities which made them memorable. I loved Wade the most because of his protective personality towards his mom and Sarah camp rescue scene was precious, his sense of humor and how he saw through his father's shit.
- The infinite drama and action. Imagine all psychotic things a family can go through. Go ahead, imagine them all. From a robbery to diseases to fights to selling babies to infidelity to drug deals - Everything happens in this book. Everything psychotic, if I may add.
- Very diverse for an old 2000s novel, with characters who don't have limbs, to ones who have AIDS to ones who are suicidal and depressed to just pure sleazy ones - a good mixed bag. I also appreciate the author's attempt at breaking stigma and popular misconceptions surrounding AIDS/HIV.
- Atmospheric old school humour employed, reminiscent of the 70s, made me laugh out loud.
- Commonplace things like trying to stop someone from speaking too long on the phone so that you can go to the bathroom are skipped in other books but were very well weaved in this one and made the scenes much more realistic and easy to imagine.


What happened in the last 100 pages:
- I was overwhelmed by the drama. At one point after the 150 page mark, it kind of turned absurd and unrealistic. It felt like the author pushed it too far.
- A sense of detachment from the characters. I couldn't care less about their predicaments when I really did care for them at the start. I think adding more characters and just a what the fuck is happening here plotline can sometimes do that. I also blame this on me not reading this in one sitting.
- The weird italics part. I didn't get them a lot of times and that irritated the shit out of me.

Without making this long, this book is precisely psychotic, full with drama and comedy which make it read like a movie. Recommended for readathons because it's short and easy to fly through!

At first I thought it was not going to be a wise decision to pick this book up right after I finished Crime and Punishment. I was right. I was annoyed. How could I possibly read witty banter when Lizaveta was killed with an ax? How about reading slap-sticky fight scenes between a father and son when dear Rodya was living the hard-labor life in Siberia? That’s not even to mention how absurdly over-the-top the entire family and all of the peripheral characters were. An eccentric billionaire obsessed with cloning famous people throughout history? A Ugandan prostitute with a very special power? Really?

Really.

After I finished the book, I realized that I was wrong. This book was just what I needed. It was the perfect book to read after C&P. It cheered me immensely. It made me think. It made me laugh. I looked beyond the comedy and found the real depth of emotion that was there. What a sweet book.

Drummond family, I love you! Well, Bryan and Ted not so much, but everyone else was just great.

Now, some would argue that they know exactly what they are in for when they read a Coupland novel -- that he recycles the same themes with varying degrees of success. This is only my second novel of Coupland’s, and I can see that, BUT, it’s kind of like my love for the band Social Distortion. Yes, all of their songs sound pretty much the same, even after all these years, but they still rock.

I know that when I finish crying over Doctor Zhivago, because that’s what I anticipate doing, I’ll be able to pick up another one of Coupland’s novels to snap me out of my funk.

What a hoot! I'm so happy to have enjoyed this book after hating Worst. Person. Ever. Coupland's books are touch and go with me; some I liked a lot, others made me cringe.

The Drummond family in this novel are well worth reading about -- perhaps not psychotic, but high on the scale of dysfunction. Perhaps it is this quality that makes them so entertaining.

Janet and Ted have long been separated and moved on with their lives -- Ted in a more traditional way (trophy wife); Janet with a burning desire to discover more of the world, and she has mastered the internet. Their three grown children have remarkable lives (though one of them is unsure whether to continue living). Their daughter is super successful and one of the sons doesn't reveal what he does to make a living.

This page-turner is full of fun but still manages to make astute observations about our world and how we find our places in it.

Good quick read about the most dysfunctional yet still functioning family

Despite its rather rambling plot, I actually have a soft spot for All Families are Psychotic. It has something to do with the zaniness of the characters being so realistic. And the ending always chokes me up.

As the title implies, the book's about family and the tribulations one's family undergoes as the wheel turns and one generation supplants another. Yet it's also about all the motifs surrounding family: growing up, maturity, dealing with mortality, and realizing how screwed up the world actually is. Douglas Coupland doesn't pull any punches when he depicts the Drummond family, but I won't try to summarize each character with a one-line description. I'd just end up making them sound like stereotypes, and they aren't.

Where All Families Are Psychotic excels, more so than some of Coupland's other books, is sandwiching pithy observations about life in between the actions of the book's characters and the consequences of those actions. The Gum Thief didn't do nearly as well in this respect. Coupland has some very valid observations about life, and by having two generations of adults in this novel, he can explore the shift in attitudes toward life between the 1950s and the 21st century. Janet Drummond, past middle age and wondering what the hell she's done with her life, is finally breaking free of her housewife shell and becoming a person. Her children, on the other hand, are all discovering they're unhappy with who they are right now, that their identities have been subsumed in favour of their roles in society.

Chronic and terminal conditions play a large role in All Families Are Psychotic, as almost every member of the Drummond family has one. Janet and Wade (and later, Wade's stepmother, Nickie) have HIV/AIDS. Ted has liver cancer (although we don't learn that until the very end). Sarah was born without a left hand as a result of Janet's use of thalidomide. Interestingly enough, the third Drummond child, Bryan, lacks any sort of outright condition. This is fitting for Bryan's character, however, since he lacks any sort of life. As Janet observes, Bryan, even as an adult, is still a child.

These chronic conditions help define the Drummonds but don't encapsulate them. The struggle to determine an identity beyond one's medical condition is a huge part of the book, but unlike some "inspirational" literature, Coupland never tries to make it sappy. There's a twist near the end concerning Janet, Wade, and Nickie's HIV status, but this is, after all, a work of fiction. Coupland uses the twist to ask questions we don't always ask ourselves.

All Families Are Psychotic is nothing if character-driven, yet almost all of the characters are actually devices rather than people. Take Florian, for example, a Wizard-type whose money and affluence allows him to do anything he wants. Coupland has a habit of introducing such omnipotent characters into his novels--take Kam Fong or even Douglas Coupland, both from JPod, as an example. He does this for two reasons: firstly, because everyone loves an omnipotent badass; and secondly, because they let him crank up the absurd to eleven.

Coupland sprinkles his novels with absurdity like it's a cherished condiment, and that only improves the tone of his writing: cheekily irreverent, because he's not trying to make your heart bleed or your eyes water (even though this is often the end result). He's trying to shock and amuse, to create an instant catharsis. And that's what I appreciate so much about All Families Are Psychotic: it manages to be deliciously outrageous and incredibly accurate all at the same time.

Finished this book just so I could write my review on here, haha. It’s a very bizarre and candid book. It made me miss my own psychotic family very much. Though I understand that not everyone will be able to relate to the actual plot (I mean, hopefully), the underlying themes and the exploration of humanity and mortality perfectly encapsulates the human experience: from the “outwardly perfect but inwardly numb” Sarah to the “outward mess but inward sweetheart” Wade, and the uh inexplicable person that is Bryan, I think we all can find at least one character to project upon, or to remind us of a loved one. Personally I loved the mother, Janet. She gave me a lot to think about. Well, all the characters did.
Not a lot of writers can handle writing about death in such a straightforward way, but thanks to his dry humour and the structure of the writing, Mr. Coupland does so very well. I’m going to have to sleep on this book a lot before I decide what lessons I want to take from it, but regardless it was a very strong book. Definitely a new favourite. I’m not sure it’s for everyone, since it’s very Curt about death: I don’t think it was written for people who take themselves very seriously—or maybe that’s exactly the demographic that needs this book the most. I don’t know. I just know that I have a lot to ponder now, and that you will too if you decide to read it. So hilarious and heartbreaking at once, I bet it will stay with me for a very long time.

Well, makes my family feel almost mundane and that’s saying a lot. If you’ve ever urinated on a high voltage fence or stuck a dining implement deep into an electrical socket and had your thoughts scrambled and weird attributes of those you love suddenly stand out as your life passed before your eyes in that split second, you might get close to how strangely electrifying this family story feels. I put it down around page 50 in August. Then picked it up again about 5 hours ago. By 10 minutes in, I was completely incapable of anything other than simply devouring this crazy tale! Redemption for the un-redeemable by a most unlikely source in a very unusual and unanticipated manner. Finally, yes, Virginia, love can conquer all.

Picked it up on holiday from a shelf full of the most eclectic mix of fact and fiction.
Immediately it piqued my interest because of the dry wit and excellent writing.

Coupland has a fantastic way with words and a real talent for knocking an idea or a preconception right on the nose with a punchy phrase.

The story itself is the most scatty and peculiar tale you’ll ever come across. It has more twists than a curly wurly and nothing about it is at all predictable, let alone much of it even being plausible.

The characters are well developed and either compellingly hateful, fascinating or eminently likeable.

As a whole it’s a great read, witty, clever, pithy and philosophical.

You won’t regret the journey.

My third Douglas Coupland novel, All Families Are Psychotic, is so far my least favorite Douglas Coupland novel.

All Families Are Psychotic is about the Drummond family who run into all sorts of shenanigans when they all meet up for the first time in decades to see one of them fly off into space. There's Janet and Ted, the matriarch and patriarch, and their three children Bryan, Sarah, and Wade. With them also are their significant others: Ted's Nickie, Bryan's Shw, and Wade's Beth. It's actually a great premise for a book but sadly it thinks it's funnier and quirkier than it is for taking it to the places it does. There are black market baby sales, pharmaceutical drug lords, two characters have HIV, several of them are witnesses to a random armed robbery, but the central plot involves three of the Drummond family members (Bryan, Ted, and Wade) delivering a letter from Prince William that was stolen from Princess Diana's casket for $500K. Along the way we can get flashbacks to many of the messed up memories this family has of each other to explain why they are fractured as they are, or as Coupland puts it, psychotic.

And none of it I found all that funny.

Not in a "iTs NoT a LaUgHiNg MaTtEr" way. Just in a way that I thought it was being silly for the sake of being silly yet not as cleverly silly as it thinks it is. I always hate that about things. But worst of all, really, is All Families Are Psychotic is written as generically as possible. It felt like it coulda been written by any No Name Generic Author. There's no distinct, unique voice. Characters talk the way they only do in books, in that amateurish writerly way, and Coupland's singular observations aren't as astute or profound as they have been in the past.

It's a no from me, dog.

Probably closer to five stars than four, but that's because I have a deep and unwavering love for All Things Coupland ever since he wrote Generation X. I can't trust myself to rate fairly, so it's down to four stars.

His novels are so quotable, and that's kind of a problem? Like, I think he writes his characters, and when he writes them he comes up with these quotes when he's writing and he says to himself, "YES, that is SO GOOD, Imma put that in his/her mouth" and it is good, but it's not actually what a real live person would literally say, in that moment, you know? Not anyone I know, in any strata of society, at least. Maybe Coupland is different, maybe Canadians are different, who knows?

But the characters are, indeed, super quotable.

Well, the plot. The plot of this novel is hard to describe, but it's a farce, and a caper, much like the farces and the capers of that guy that writes...oh what's his name...the Florida novels...crap. Carl Hiaasen! Right, if you like his work, you'll like All Families are Psychotic, and I've just described the plot to you.