Rating: 
Summary: Loved it
Review: I liked that the book wasn't your typical teen tragedy romance. The spiritual side of the book and the end of the world plot was a refreshing twist.It was great.
Rating: 
Summary: Shoplifters of the world, unite and take over!
Review: I have a soft spot for this book, which is not one of Douglas Coupland's best, owing to its tireless catalogue of Smiths lyrics. The title, obviously, but I think I counted something like 38 direct references to Smiths songs in one run-through, including the double whammy sentence "Golden lights oscillate wildly," which had no seeming context except itself.The plotting of "Girlfriend in a Coma" is quite good but the characters fall short: they're half-formed - which is good, in a way, since the novel covers such a long time period - and not all that interesting to begin with. Also, do you have to throw in a fifteen year old crack addict pregnant with her drug-dealer's baby? How about a light touch? Yes. Softly. Will the world end in the daytime? I really don't know. Is there any point ever having children? Oh, I don't know...
Rating:
Summary: inspirational tale of hope....
Review: It is so difficult to put into words how this novel makes me feel. It is inspirational and enlightning, without being patronising or typically 'new age'. Despite a content that, from an inferior writer, could appear absurd, in Coupland's hands the subject and emotion of this tale are delivered with outstanding clarity and realism. It is essential that this book be read by anyone currently pondering the purpose of this life, or those who have a desire to be uplifted and 'knocked for six' in one session. It is truely Coupland's entrance into a writing masterclass, an escape from 'X-ism'...read it!
Rating:
Summary: Dare to Think Deeply
Review: A woman comes out of a coma after almost 20 years to discover that the world has changed for the worse and her friends have barely changed. All the newest inventions have left people with less and less time and made everyone shallower and shallower. She predicts that, 3 days after Christmas, the end of the world will come and only herself and her slacker friends will be left. The question is, can they learn from being the only people left in the world or will they continue to be slackers. I have never been swept into a book in such a way; I found my dreams getting tangled up in this book at night. But it's fitting, since it seems that much of the book takes place in the realm of dreams. I love the mandate given to the characters at the end of the book to go out and ask questions and make people think. Without asking questions about how we got to where we are, the purpose of it all, and where we are going, the world stagnates. The author touches on my own feeling that technology is actually causing many people to stagnate. You can tell this if you've ever been in an internet chat room and have tried to procure any intellectual conversation from anyone. Great book.
Rating: 
Summary: a sense of glowing in the aftermath
Review: Douglas Coupland has written a passion play or at least he has borrowed a lot of elements from this medieval art form. Passion plays are the story of Christ's suffering on the cross, his journey through the Hell in the three days before he rises again. In Girlfriend In A Coma a Vancouver teenager named Karen has visions of an apocalyptic future and in December 1979 plunges into a coma. Her five friends subsequently and perhaps consequently lose their ways in life; all of their lives become versions of Hell. Seventeen years later on All Saints Day (Nov. 1, 1997) Karen awakes to a very different world where he carefree, fun-loving high school friends have been transformed into harried, depressive, drug-abusing shadows. Hovering over all of this is Jared, a friend from the same high school who, a year before Karen went into a coma, died of leukemia at 16. Jared's angelic presence introduces the book in a brief preface, speaking to the reader from the "end of the world", a total depopulated planet. The first third of the book is then told largely from the point of view of Richard, Karen's boyfriend. This is largely the story of the night of the coma and 17 years that come after. Coupland tells the story in image-packed vignettes that include his trademark commentary on consumerism, contemporary vanity and the spiritual emptiness of modern life. After Karen wakes up you intially think that you will get primarily her point of view, but Coupland does not hold to so formal an exercise. The second third of the book is largely given over to Karen's reactions to how "hard" every one and every thing has become in the future. She has been asleep for 17 years so she sees what is around her through fresh, unjaded teenage eyes. Coupland's commentary on life in the 1990s is very damning and frankly spot on from my point of view. But then I am the same age as Mr. Coupland. Karen is shocked at how worn out and run down every one seems in spite of all of their electronic devices to increase their efficiency. She is appalled that 'increased efficiency' has been put up on such a pedestal. And upon finding out that Hamilton and Pam are heroin addicts at 34, her reaction is "They're awfully old to be on drugs." It is the last third of the book that is most likely to throw most readers. In the final pages of Generation X, oh so many years ago, one of the protagonists is driving through the desert and thinks he sees a mushroom cloud in the distance. His reaction is a mixture of horror and resignation, but it turns out only to be a sandstorm. In Girlfriend In A Coma, it is not just a sandstorm. It isn't a nuclear attack either. Instead it is like something out of the Old Testament. The six friends (and Karen and Richard's daughter; long story) are finally the only people left on Earth. Jared comes to visit them and tells them that they have been chosen to have special role in the redemption of humankind. This final third of the novel is narrated by Jared. This is, as most people have complained, the weakest part of the novel. You have no idea why these people have been singled out. For about 200 pages you have seen no singular behavior from any of them; they have seemed like incredibly typical middle-class suburban white kids who can't seem to grow up. For Coupland to put the fate of humankind in the hands of such people is a cruel, depressed joke. But it is kind of a funny joke if you have the stomach for existential bleakness on a global scale. So this is a rough ride. It isn't 'sci-fi' as some people have claimed, since there is virtually no science involved at all. It isn't really 'fantasy' in the usual sense either, which usually borrows more from pagan tradition than Christianity. Instead this is a parable, a story that hopes to impart a lesson. He is mixing the passion play story together with the apocalyse story which some might regard as a bit sloppy. Coupland very much goes over the top, but then we should all be used to his odd mixture of under- and overstatement. Post-modern readers might not like being told "shape up or else" by someone that they thought was "one of them", but that's what is going on in this novel. More power to him.
Rating: 
Summary: Starts well, descends into sci-fi ...
Review: This was the first Coupland book that I've read and it will probably be the last. I loved the first 100 pages or so of the book but after that it seems to spin out of control. About half way through it starts to read like one of Stephen King's trashier efforts and I lost interest. Just too unbelievable and contrived. Very disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: VOICE OF A GENERATION
Review: To date this is Coupland's most poignant and provocative piece of fiction. He explores life in our past-postmodern time through the filter of the apocalyptic maybe. It is rare that in the life of an author since the death of the author that we see a man write not one but two (or more) thought provoking pieces of literature. Coupland is not only a voice of a generation aptly titled "X" but also a purveyor and commentator of our perpetually present time. I would recommend this novel to any young thoughtful person looking to explore our culture through the literature of our time. I would recommend this novel along side Catcher in the Rye and Brave New World, it is truly a classic.
Rating:
Summary: a wonderfully entertaining and uplifting novel
Review: Girlfriend in a Coma features some rather absurd and quirky plot twists which some readers may find to be a turn off, but Coupland is able to draw the reader into the world of his characters, who he draws out ever so well (Character development is perhaps his strongest aspect.) Before reading this novel I would recommend going back and absorbing both Generation X and Life After God, which are better introductions to Coupland's style. Coupland takes you on a trip to find the meaning of love, life and spirituality in a post-modern world riddled with banal strip-mall landscapes, drug addictions, the accelerated pace of pop-culture, generation gaps, and technological dominance. He gives us human beings still trying to make their way through the world, wondering what lies beyond, fearing apocalypse, seeking love and a self. All in all his works are very amusing, engaging, poignant and thoughtful. He is a master of observation of both the small and grand. I've never read anyone quite like him. (and yes, there are a few Smiths references in the book.)
Rating:
Summary: Angst Soaked Gen-X Icon?
Review: When a friend of mine recomended that I read Douglas Coupland, my immediate reaction was to scoff. I was under the impression that Coupland was just some angst ridden, gen-x kid who threw together 300 pages of gibberish about how hard it was growing up in the nineties. My mistake. Coupland is indeed a talented writer. I was suprised at the depth of the book, and the metaphysical aspects that Coupland so cleverly intwined with his pop culture snippets.
Rating: 
Summary: Morally bankrupt
Review: Coupland can write and he has a great premise for the novel, but he doesn't know what to do with it because at heart it seems he's got no more clues than your average Joe Schmo about what is going on with life and how to make it work successfully. It's ultimately disappointing. Don't set up a structure if you've got no way to resolve it (which is what he did in this book).
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