Hey Nostradamus! really wasn’t for me. Though it was written from multiple perspectives, none of the characters felt particularly likeable, and the four voices were entirely indistinguishable from one another. Several moments were just entirely unbelievable, characters negative behaviour seemed to bring little to no repercussions, and Reg’s extreme personality change just felt unrealistic. This book is a quick read, but in all honesty, unless you’re already a fan of Coupland’s work, I wouldn’t bother. This was my first Coupland novel and I doubt I’ll go on to read any others.

Douglas Coupland sure knows how to tap into prevailing cultural phenomena and weave them into compelling tales. I like it.

When I was younger, I used to have big thoughts about the books I read. Tremendously huge thoughts! Deep and philosophical! Perhaps it's because I was younger and my mind was an explosion in a fireworks warehouse, every idea lighting up and blowing up fifteen more. And now that I'm older, I think all of my fireworks have been spent and I find myself sitting in a dark warehouse thinking, "This should mean something. This probably means something."

Perhaps it's also simply that I've become a product of our technological times. I had far fewer things distracting me from the whirling zephyr of thoughts happening inside my brain. Maybe Nick at Nite. Or going out drinking with some friends. Or The X-Files. Or the occasional Warhammer campaign. But I certainly wasn't consumed by checking social media sites or playing a never-ending string of online games with friends scattered all over the country or avoiding thinking whenever I do anything because I'm plugged into a podcast.

What I'm getting at is that I just read a Douglas Coupland book and I have no coherent thoughts about it. But I know I should! I am the mute guy who gave voices to stuffed animals! I took a stuffed penguin named Schnabel (birthed from the Arby's in Downtown Lincoln, Nebraska) to see Star Wars the Phantom Menace. He loved the trailer for Fight Club because of the penguin saying, "Slide!" I took the penguin, a small dinosaur named Rex (Runza Rex!), and a little moose to go see Fraser's The Mummy! So why didn't I identify with Jason more?! Is it because I grew up before school shootings were endemic to America? Coupland sets the shooting in the mid-80s (which, again, perfect for my time in junior high/high school) but that was way before these things were common place.

It's also possible this book didn't connect with me like his others because this is his Generation X for Millennials. I usually can't go many pages in a Coupland book without being absolutely crushed by some observation or another. Perhaps I'd mostly aged out of this one. Except for this line. This fudging line:

"And then . . . and then I felt truly old for the first time — old in the sense that I was beyond the point of ever doing something radical or bold to change the course of my life."

Our lives are like funnels glued up top-to-top. We're blasted through the small opening and set forth on an ever-widening path full of choices and possibilities. But eventually, you find yourself crossing over into the other funnel. The space before you dwindling every year. Every choice constricting possibilities until you've been on a narrow path for so many years, you hardly noticed. But you can see the end of it and, as the line points out, there's not much opportunity to veer aside.

But that doesn't have much to do with the book! I don't think. This is probably why I just write silly nonsense when I do my book reviews now! Because my powers of philosophical perception have dwindled down to practically nothing in my dotage. My brain boils everything I read down to another Michael Crichton plot. Just makes it easily digestible, ignoring all of the profound and beautiful insights that make reading so incredibly satisfying.

Maybe I should just stick to reading Jim Davis books.

This is my first foray into the world of Coupland’s writing. I quite enjoyed the story that he developed. The dark humour combined with the stark look at life and humanity to make an interesting and captivating read. There were times when I was utterly captivated with the story and others when I found the pace of the story lagged a bit. The large passage of time in the novel was quite well done. It was quite interesting to see how a single event affected 4 different individuals over the span of decades.

I ‘read’ the audio version of this one and loved the narrators. The 4 different narrators, one for each section, was brilliant. They really brought the characters to life in a real and vivid way. I did have an issue with the audio version I had. It was only 4 tracks. Any time I had to pause it for too long and the player reset I had to fast forward through 150+minutes of the track to find my spot. It made it rather difficult to stay immersed in the story at times (and was beyond frustrating when I hit the wrong button).

As a whole this was an enjoyable and unique tale that definitely made me think.

"There are certain human behavioral traits that can be talked about, but unless you've experiences the impulse behind them, they remain theoretical. Most of the time, this is for the best."

Cheryl and Jason grow up in a tight conservatibe religious community. They live the life of two average teenagers, despite the fact that they have secretly eloped to Vegas to get married. One day, their secret is on the verge of coming out. Cheryl is pregnant. The two struggle how to deal with this when their school turns into a war zone. School shooters have taken over the place and kill Cheryl. Part of Jason dies with his wife and their unborn child. But he has to go on. He tries to make a life for himself with Heather but nothing makes sense anymore. His overbearing father Reg only makes things worse. Where is god in all this? Is he in all this or none of it?

It may sound like the plot of a teenage romance but it nothing of the sort. Inbetween the pieces of the story, there are these short confronting and painful prayers that show what is really living inside these characters. They encourage a more philosophical approach to the whole story.

All in all, what I got from this book is that it is wise to evaluate your value structure as you go through life. Principles are good but traditions either become irrelevant or offensive with time. Religion can be a source of comfort and help in this but it is important to still think about what you're really doing. No one has the answers to the big questions. We all deal with that void differently.

Another fabulous read from Douglas Coupland. His characters breathe and come alive while you turn the pages... so much so that you don't want to put down the book! Seeing as this book was set in Vancouver which is just a stones throw away from me, this added to the enjoyment for me. I knew specifically about the areas he was talking about, which made this fictional story more real.

Read this book. Just do it.

Cheryl's story is so beautiful and elaborate and makes you understand how beautiful this world is and how much we must cherish all the little details of our universe. Her very real perspective forces you to be aware that all of us are very much alive. Everyone feels SO MUCH and everyone is fully living their life second after second just as you are inside your head, and that is a very beautiful concept to be able to grasp. This books exquisite writing makes it very easy to relate to her humanity.
But Cheryl's story is also so ugly and hideous and I had to pause while reading because what happened filled me with so much contempt and hate and negativity because there really is no decent reason and the absence of life right after/amidst such a realization of the presence of life is so ghastly incomprehensible and hard to face or accept. I mean, half the characters in this book you DONT see any humanity in. You cannot relate to them, and it's such a helpless struggle when the person you are seeing the world through believes in God so much, yet there is so little of him present in their world.

It bothers me so much that Jason didn't move on. I believe in the value and beauty of life portrayed in the first part of this book, but after that image was shattered, nobody really put it back together. From then on, everything and everyone was so drowning and negative and after a while I couldn't really stand it. Don't read this book if you're depressed, it really won't improve your condition.

So ya. Some of the things I felt. Not sure if I got what the author wanted out of this book. This book made me feel a lot and it made me feel it strongly. It didn't help me reach any answers to the questions that where contemplated within it ( such as the presence of God, societal acceptance, etc.) but it definitely gave me new perspectives and awareness.

Again, just read it. My words don't mean anything - this book is a very personal mental journey.

I've been hearing for years that I should read some Coupland, and H was getting rid of this so I decided to give it a shot.

I thought that the telling of the story from four different perspectives at four different times was a well-used technique, as it helped to capture not only the event that is the catalyst for the story (the school shooting that kills the first narrator), but also the ripple effect that event set off. I didn't necessarily feel that each narrator's voice was unique enough, and honestly, I wasn't as impressed with the overall plot as I'd hoped. This isn't to say that it didn't hold my interest, but it was lacking...something.

Also, I will note that because I tend to get too emotionally involved, it was really tough for me to read the school shooting descriptions. I kept having to put the book down.

OK I didn't actually finish it this time around, but I did read this in high school. I tried to read it again as a reading challenge to "re-read something you hated in high school". Yep, still hate it. The weirdly (each for different reasons) religious characters, the strange tangents, it just goes on and on. Cheryl's part was the only section I found well written, coherent, and somewhat interesting. By Jason's part I felt like someone had slipped me something. Tried to continue onto Heather's part, but life's too short to read a terrible book twice ya know?

this book has widely variant reviews, It seems to be something like Marmite in the love and hate line. For me this is in the love category, it captures the soul straight away through the voice of Cheryl Anway and then continues to turn the screw on the soul as you hear from the other "voices". I was a little disappointed by the ending - wanted just something more but overall this is a cracking book

Me gusta Douglas Coupland, sus planteos, personajes y escenarios suelen ser muy bien pensados. En ese sentido, esta novela no es la excepción, con un tema muy duro e intenso y un giro en la trama que estuvo muy bueno.

Sin embargo, debo decir que por momentos me resultó un poco monótona, y aunque generalmente me gusta mucho la manera de escribir del autor, en esta oportunidad me fue difícil diferenciar entre los personajes y el narrador.

Si ya leíste Microserfs, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture y All Families are Psychotic, este es un buen libro para seguir con material del autor, de lo contrario recomiendo ir con alguno de esos clásicos.

I think this book is overwhelmingly mediocre and is very boring to read. It was very intriguing in the first chapters when Cheryl and Jason narrated the school shooting. Other than these few pages, the book was very repetitive and not exciting in the slightest. The book is not fully centered around violence because of the shooting but is more about how a tragic event can cause a drastic lifestyle change and can create a questioning in faith.