I was given this book as a gift during a rough period in my life having just finished high school.

Im not sure exactly what this book is about other than it's main character often reflections on where he is now based on where he has been and the daily struggle to get by in life with those decisions are made already.
The book isnt religious dispite the title..and the last chapter I thought was very good.
Be warned though, if you were to pick up Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis today, the way Douglas Coupland writes about pop culture makes the book feel very dated, but still a great book, and a easy read if your feeling like your life is in a rut. It wont give you answers, but misery loves company. ( )

A favorite quote of many:
Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have had other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy. ( )

I quite liked the prose style of this collection of short stories, which I felt managed to tread that fine line between being economical and being evocative. There were some strangely beautiful little tableaux and some striking images.

I was, however, a little puzzled as to how Coupland managed to write so many successive characters as being so distinctly more-hipster-than-thou, yet at the same time not manage to make them at all distinct from one another. I was very confused reading...more I quite liked the prose style of this collection of short stories, which I felt managed to tread that fine line between being economical and being evocative. There were some strangely beautiful little tableaux and some striking images.

I was, however, a little puzzled as to how Coupland managed to write so many successive characters as being so distinctly more-hipster-than-thou, yet at the same time not manage to make them at all distinct from one another. I was very confused reading the second and third stories, until I realised that each story was about a different person; the voices were so similar that I had just assumed they were all being narrated by the same individual. A little too self-conscious for me as well, too hyper-aware of its disillusionment, in that particular manner you get from white middle-class folk who have all the luxury of wallowing and none of the impetus towards change. ( )

Unlike his longer fiction these short stories find Coupland at his best. The tales are succinct, full of heart (despite their usually downbeat tone) and a sort empathy gained from knowing you're not the only one to feel like this. ( )

Douglas Coupland is the voice of Generation X - or that's at least his reputation. Life After God continues exploring the life of that generation, a generation raised without religion. The book consists of eight short stories, told in fragmentary paragraphs decorated with Coupland's little drawings.

The stories are not connected, but circle around the same spiritual and emotional questions. What is the meaning of life, what to believe in when there's nothing to believe in anymore, what is love, what is death, what is being human? These are big questions and obviously Coupland doesn't give answers - he just offers some interesting points of view.

I'm not part of the generation Coupland writes about - perhaps someone born in the 1960's will find this book more important. However, many of the topics are so general, so commonly human that everyone should find something from Coupland's stories. Life After God is casual philosophy, and a rather pleasant little book despite all its sadness. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)

(Review of Life After God in Mikko reads) ( )