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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
This book was recommended to me by a cute boy I wanted to get to know better so I read it. He seems to have since gone out of my life and I may not see him again, so I’m left with the book.
I haven’t read Coupland since my early 20’s, he was very much a product of the nineties and the slacker generation looking to zone out of existence. This book is no exception and while there are smart moments, the book now seems very dated and the fresh cultural references of the time a touch stale.
Coupland’s strength here is his humour and insight, played to varying degrees of success. For example, the geek humour of a line like “Tonight she has a date with a Marina District tattoo artist, so we’re all expecting her to show up tomorrow with a Pentium chip etched into her shoulder.” This geek humour appealed to me less than this line, read on a snowy winter afternoon: “God, winter is gross. I can’t believe Eskimos just don’t set themselves adrift on ice floes for the boredom of it all. Or move to Florida.”
I think another thing I disliked about the book is that I’m not 20 anymore. Lines like “What’s a bar bill but a surtax on reality” may have once held meaning, but now I can’t even be bothered to stop to think about them.
The story is charming enough that I was able to continue but I was still ready for it to be over. The book ends on a touching note, but overall the plot really goes nowhere. The central story, OOp!, is never resolved, and elements that could have been strong are burned out too quickly. For example the work at Microsoft, one of the big reasons someone would pick up this book, is finished in the first 25% and you spend the rest of the book waiting for them to go back. They never do. Similarly one of the characters falls in love with someone on the internet, never knowing their age or even their sex, and this concept could have played out to a satisfying conclusion. Instead it’s resolved in about 3 pages.
This read was a distraction, but is not recommended.
I haven’t read Coupland since my early 20’s, he was very much a product of the nineties and the slacker generation looking to zone out of existence. This book is no exception and while there are smart moments, the book now seems very dated and the fresh cultural references of the time a touch stale.
Coupland’s strength here is his humour and insight, played to varying degrees of success. For example, the geek humour of a line like “Tonight she has a date with a Marina District tattoo artist, so we’re all expecting her to show up tomorrow with a Pentium chip etched into her shoulder.” This geek humour appealed to me less than this line, read on a snowy winter afternoon: “God, winter is gross. I can’t believe Eskimos just don’t set themselves adrift on ice floes for the boredom of it all. Or move to Florida.”
I think another thing I disliked about the book is that I’m not 20 anymore. Lines like “What’s a bar bill but a surtax on reality” may have once held meaning, but now I can’t even be bothered to stop to think about them.
The story is charming enough that I was able to continue but I was still ready for it to be over. The book ends on a touching note, but overall the plot really goes nowhere. The central story, OOp!, is never resolved, and elements that could have been strong are burned out too quickly. For example the work at Microsoft, one of the big reasons someone would pick up this book, is finished in the first 25% and you spend the rest of the book waiting for them to go back. They never do. Similarly one of the characters falls in love with someone on the internet, never knowing their age or even their sex, and this concept could have played out to a satisfying conclusion. Instead it’s resolved in about 3 pages.
This read was a distraction, but is not recommended.
For me Coupland has some 5-star books. This is not one of them. The characters come across as flat and uninteresting. And the story as a whole was kind of dull. One of his earlier books, perhaps that’s what caused the lack of polish.
I was worried that my limited vocab of comp-sci jargon would inhibit me from fully comprehending this book but it did not! This book was written in the 90’s but i had to double check that it wasn’t written in the last 10 years at least thrice. I laughed, i cried, and i think i am going to walk away from this one different than i went into it. What a charming, witty yet profoundly moving story.
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
the ending of the book made me cry, it was a fantastic pay off.
the last hundred or so pages made this one for me. the ending is so beautiful, i couldn't stop tearing up
basically Generation X but with Microsoft employees. Strong start but loses steam into the middle, picks up near the end.
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
the novel spends a lot of time making me ask the question: “this is really cool, but what does this all mean?” and it takes a really long time to answer that question but the final act ties together many of the underlying themes and discussions of the novel. i feel that this book drags at times, but seeing as the emotional weight near the end is so heavy, it’s relatively easy to forgive the meandering middle parts of the book, at least for me it was. douglas coupland saw into a future of blog posts, minecraft, and the silicon zeitgeist and honestly found something really special to write about.
edit: i just realized that goodreads does not have a half star rating so, realistically this is a 3.5/5, but i bumped it to a 4.
edit: i just realized that goodreads does not have a half star rating so, realistically this is a 3.5/5, but i bumped it to a 4.
This is actually one of my favorite books, and read it every three or four years or so.
There is a bit of nostalgia, with that period of time being so static. This is a snapshot of the beginning of the shift. My hometown was never the same after the time this book refers.
There is a bit of nostalgia, with that period of time being so static. This is a snapshot of the beginning of the shift. My hometown was never the same after the time this book refers.