A very bizarre book.

It seems very strange that I've never read Douglas Copeland before... Maybe I did but I forgot? Anyway, I got this at the Brokelyn Book Swap last month and I can't pick it up without the Smiths song digging into my head, which is fine now but will probably get really old really fast.

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I unfortunately took like a two-week break from this book to read Bone, which is especially shitty because I was less than twenty pages from the end of Girlfriend in a Coma when I decided to do that. So n.b., books: if you are so uncompelling that I will start another book when I am literally within spitting distance of finishing you, we are probably not very good friends.

This is another one of those books I feel bad for disliking; I kind of think this is considered a cult classic or something? And I know lots of smart people who like it, or him, anyway. For my part, I couldn't stop thinking of Brett Easton Ellis, that one book where all the twenty-somethings do a bunch of coke and fuck each other? Or maybe that's all of his books.

Anyway, I wish I'd known to read this in high school, or early college, when this sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy and wide-eyed philosophical meandering would have probably appealed to me a lot more. At this point I am a cynical bitch with little time for this sort of self-involved frippery, I guess. Sorry, Doug.

I REALLY loved this book, and it went to many different places than expected. It was a combination of genres, and despite being written in 1997 or so, FELT very immediate. I have a lot more to say, but I am currently listening to an audiobook on my headphones and find it hard to write whilst listening to a different book at the same time! (Yes...I might have a 'problem' when it comes to my voracious reading...) --Jen from Quebec :0)

Here we go again.... what can I say? Other than I fear that this book was a complete and utter waste of my precious time.

Ok... the beginning was reasonable, but the ending... [oh Lord!]...the ending was not only extremely disapponting.... it also seemed to drag somewhat.

I am sure that there are many for whom this book is wonderful yet, for one, I cannot understand those plaudits nor the acclaim with which Douglas Coupland is held.

The story [Was there a story there at all? Really? Honestly?]... well, if there was, it was crap, crap, crap and then some more. Furthermore, the characters.... Who the hell were they? I personally didn't get to know enough about any of the characters to care about them.

At times I was unsure whether or not I had been transported to a parallel universe where all books were shallow, yet supposedly deep, self-mocking, yet pretentiously inspired with wit and contemporary humour.... Whilst in this dreamlike nightmare I turned to the cover and saw that the title read "Reader in a Coma" and realised that indeed this was the truth of the journey that I was undertaking.

I would not recommend this book to anyone... even my enemies.
Indeed I couldn't wait to finish this book and throw it away. It really was that bad.

Not what I expected. A morality lesson. Blechhh.

I loved the first half of this book. It was a fascinating premise - boy and girl make love for the first time, then hours later she falls into a coma. They discover she is pregnant, and the first half of the book talks about the families and the friends (and lover) of Karen (in the coma).

Then Karen wakes up, and the book goes off at a weird tangent - the end of the world, finally going all "It's a Wonderful Life" on us.

I really enjoyed the first half of the book, but the second half seemed like he couldn't decide what to do with the characters so decided to go with 'bizarre'. The characters reactions to the events in the second half were nothing like an actual human would react IMO, even though they had 'prior warning' that something like that would occur. I felt a bit cheated at the end.

Whilst growth is considered a good, well essential, thing for every country's well being and while we trade in money rather than carbon points or similar, I don't see what we can do to reverse the trend. This book might be scary in it's vision of the future - at least that's what I think it was about - but without offering any solutions it was rather empty and sad.

The first part of the book held my interest but it faded off quite rapidly. Right, that' it, must be off; one more to finish to reach my target.

This is the worst book I've ever read. I remember picking it up because Coupland was being lauded as the voice of the modern age. He talked about computers and having existential crises. Yeah, so I read this cover to cover. It was like drinking Nyquil without the payoff. All I really remember about this book is that it seemed like a bad ripoff of a Stephen King story. What self-respecting literary fiction writer rips off Stephen freaking King? For a long time I considered Douglas Coupland to be my nemesis and I wondered when the day would come that I could punch him in the throat. I got over that and I am sure he's a nice guy. He's definitely a rich guy so he must be somehow smarter than I am. I hated this book. I just had to share that.

Under normal circumstances this is a novel I should have absolutely hated. But, for whatever reason, it just worked for me. Lately, I've been going through something of a reading slump, and felt like trying something completely different from what I'd normaly read - and oh boy was this different. It didn't start off too well though, as reading the first few pages: we get the voice of a dead babe magnet football player, I was starting to wonder just what the hell I was letting myself in for. Thankfully, once it settled down and really kicked in, I found much to like about Coupland's zany narrative, which spans two decades starting at the end of the seventies, about a bunch of aimless friends in Vancouver.

Not wise to take booze and Valium on an empty stomach, but that is what happens to Karen McNeil at a party: no food as she is crash-dieting for an upcoming holiday and wants that beach body look. And then along comes a coma: one that will last for eighteen years. The spooky part being she was having strange visions of the future: one that ain't great for mankind. During her time laying there lifeless, her friends; including her boyfriend at the time Richard, grow up from teens to adults. But they never really grow up at all; and just turn into drifters, junkies, and alcoholics. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Karen had a baby (Megan) whilst in a coma, so Richard is now a seventeen-year-old dad. Coupland races through the years, and there is something sincerely honest about the way he perceives this group of close-knit friends, and the challenges they face. And then along comes the moment when Karen wakes up. And the novel changes completely; turning into a fully blown satire. Her nightmarish visions come true, and we kind of enter disaster-movie territory. I thought this shift in the story would end up ruining things; but it didn't. It was all rather clever actually. There is a TV interview Karen hesitantly agrees to give; and it turns into one of the great satirical moments of modern fiction. At least that's how I looked at it anyway.

There are quite a few low scoring reviews for this, but obviously I thought a lot more of it, and it felt like just the sort of novel I needed right now. Also, being a Brit, it resonated with me more. I know that sounds odd seeing as the novel is written by a Canadian and set in Canada, but Coupland here did seem to a have a worldview that felt more British than anything else, and featured many references, including British music, on various occasions.

This is quite possibly one of the worst books I've ever read.

The two concepts stand alone fine:
- I would love to read a book about a girl who wakes up after a 7 year coma and has to navigate her world and relationships with an adult life but the brain of a 17-year-old; and
- I would love to read a book about friends in a post-apocalyptic world who have to navigate and answer some pretty philosophical questions.

But combined made for a terrible effect. Their dead friend spirit guide was almost laughable. I kept reading just to see how it would end, and it was no better.

Someone whose literary choices I normally respect suggested this for book club, and now I am doubting everything I ever thought about her.

This book had some strong, pretty, and thought-provoking writing. I felt it also had a strong sense of time and place (1970s-1990s Vancouver), which was a setting I enjoyed exploring. It was a different spin on an end-of-the-world book than what I've read before. I enjoyed the approach. The book felt very genuine.
The downsides of the book to me were that the pacing was slow for my taste, and that the ending was disappointing. Thoughout the whole book, there are mysterious things happening, and hints about a special meaning or truth. I kept waiting for a payoff from that foundation and it never really comes - the reason for what's happened and the special meaning are both (sort of?) vaguely revealed at the end, but not clearly enough to explain what has happened. To me it wasn't enough to satisfy my anticipation from the slow build up to that point!

This book started out with an intriguing premise: what would happen if a teenage girl fell into a coma, and then her boyfriend found out she was pregnant? If she was vegetative but steady, how would she affect the lives of her high school friends? It's well written, and everything's going along pretty well until BAM (spoiler) it turns into an apocalyptic "The Stand" type book right out of the blue. It might have been better had I known what to expect. That's a completely different kind of emotional drama than I was prepared for. I plan to go back and reread this book, this time understanding what's coming. I imagine I'll have an entirely different opinion the next time around.