Scan barcode
A review by otl1987
The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland
5.0
My first Douglas Coupland. The plot is simple. Two very different people start corresponding through a notebook.
"Roger, a divorced, middle-aged "aisles associate" at Staples, condemned to restocking reams of 20-lb. bond paper for the rest of his life. And Roger's co-worker Bethany, in her early twenties and at the end of her Goth phase, who is looking at fifty more years of sorting the red pens from the blue in aisle 6."
As they write to one another, they start to reveal personal stories and experiences from their lives and come to appreciate each other and care for one another.
From my point of view, this book adresses a very common fact. That we judge "a book by its cover". That we judge a person by the way they dress or the music they listen to. This book proves that rather often, we couldn't be more wrong. A stranger can't possibly know what another person is feeling, what he, or she, is trying to hide behind that specific way of dressing or that particular behavior. After that book, I always think what others may hide, what they don't want revealed and what they might be afraid of.
Every one of us have a secret little world inside of us and we keep it from others in different ways. And who knows, maybe that's for the best. Maybe that's the only way we can go on...
"Roger, a divorced, middle-aged "aisles associate" at Staples, condemned to restocking reams of 20-lb. bond paper for the rest of his life. And Roger's co-worker Bethany, in her early twenties and at the end of her Goth phase, who is looking at fifty more years of sorting the red pens from the blue in aisle 6."
As they write to one another, they start to reveal personal stories and experiences from their lives and come to appreciate each other and care for one another.
From my point of view, this book adresses a very common fact. That we judge "a book by its cover". That we judge a person by the way they dress or the music they listen to. This book proves that rather often, we couldn't be more wrong. A stranger can't possibly know what another person is feeling, what he, or she, is trying to hide behind that specific way of dressing or that particular behavior. After that book, I always think what others may hide, what they don't want revealed and what they might be afraid of.
Every one of us have a secret little world inside of us and we keep it from others in different ways. And who knows, maybe that's for the best. Maybe that's the only way we can go on...