Life After God

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, show more 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. show less

I like most of Coupland's work, but this one was a bit middle-of-the road. It had his usual unusual style but didn't quite hang together as well for me as most - although I must admit it picked up a lot at the end.

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.

Very good read. Great for the bus as it has lots of very short chapters. Coupland is also a genius at packing an emotional punch in very few words.

I really like Douglas Coupland. He is considered the writer of Generation X. This book was more a collection of semi-autobiographical intertwined essays (think David Sedaris set in Canada) than a true collection of fiction. While this was not my favorite thing that Coupland has written, it is well worth the read.

This book meandered, and I think Coupland was attempting to tackle some big issues here, but it just didn't work for me. The section describing the nuclear meltdown scenarios was overlong, and in the end the book just didn't gel. It also felt too much like a memoir to call it a novel, but I guess the names were changed to protect the innocent, or something like that.

A little bit to get you going after "Microserfs" and "Generation X." Hardly the vintage stuff but there are some pearls of atomic-age wisdom buried in here, and some fine characters to get to know too.