Entertaining read; I was concerned that the second half of the book would not come together, but it did, in a neat little package connecting all of the seemingly random elements together into a story. Solon does seem like a marketable drug in the digital age... the new Soma. ( )

This is a difficult review. The things is, I just love Coupland's writing, and because of that I enjoyed this more than anything I've read since, well, Coupland's last novel. But this was actually a little odd. The first half was wonderful, classic Coupland, a great story about life after bees, great characters, his usual brilliant turn of phase. And then... well, it kind of fell apart. It moved into Gum Thief territory, with the characters telling a succession of deliberately oddly /badlywritten stories (similar to Glove Pond in Gum Thief). And then the ending was just a bit daft.

But all the same, beautifully written, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I loved every sentence of it. But I'm a bit of a fanboy here, so what do I know? ( )

"Coupland's real misstep is in having Generation A narrated in first person by five separate individuals. It can take a master stylist to pull off five distinct personalities, and Coupland is not up to it. His five characters are too similar; each talks with the same cadences and rhythms, the same cultural cross-references. There is something to the idea that a rapidly shrinking world will lead to a homogeneity of speech patterns, but even accepting that premise, the difference between each character is razor-thin. One character, Diana, suffers from Tourette's, and even with her frequent bursts of obscenities, it's hard to tell her apart from the others. And as her affliction doesn't go anywhere, it's hard to say why Coupland felt compelled to include it."

Read the rest of the review here. ( )

Douglas Coupland's 'Generation A' is a satirical look at the way people communicate and tell stories in our increasingly digital world. Full of current pop cultural references and his usual Couplandisms, Generation A is a well written story on how our use of the English language is constantly changing in this ever evolving digital age. The story is told from the alternating point of view of five "Wonka children". Five people from around the world who are mysteriously stung by bees in the near future, in a time when bees are supposed to be extinct. The five main characters are then whisked off by various government health organizations and hints of a bigger mystery begin to appear.

Douglas Coupland once again writes a novel that perfectly portrays the current state of our ever changing world and culture. From the way our means of communicating have adapted to our fast paced, information driven digital age. To the way we connect to those around us, Douglas Coupland offers up an explanation for all of it. Full of humor and insight, Generation A is another excellent novel from a great Canadian writer. ( )