Customer Reviews

Girlfriend in a Coma: A Novel (P.S.)

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(49)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(28)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

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.

I really, really wanted to like this book...and it came so close to winning me over. Unfortuantely, the last quarter of the book falls apart so quickly and so badly, that it ruins whatever good experience I had with the first three quarters.

The story is really interesting, and a quick read, throughout most of the book. Then, once the Supernatural Twist occurs, it just goes downhill. From there, Coupland spends FOREVER getting to the end, and he just rambles for several chapters until he gets to the letdown that is the ending. That letdown could've come about five chapters earlier, too, since one of the characters actually warns of it...again and again and again. "I've got something to tell these people", is what he essentially says, then spends five chapters getting around to saying it.

...And, when this "bombshell" is dropped, it's boring. Plenty of people on this site have given the ending away, so I won't do that. Suffice to say, it's simplistic, it's preachy, and it isn't remotely groundbreaking. In fact, it isn't even interesting. It's just pretentious, which is a shame because so much of the book was so interesting.

I really wanted to like this book, but it just spirals out of control near the end. It seemed thrown together, and ruined a book that would've easily gotten three or four stars from me had it not lost itself in the final act.

Having now read "Life After God," "Microserfs" and "Girlfriend in a Coma" back-to-back-to-back, it's obvious that Coupland had a mortal terror of the emptiness and faithlessness of the '90s culture. This is the scariest, creepiest and oddest display of that fear.

The novel starts off in the late '70s when 17-year-old Karen loses her virginity on a skiing trip to boyfriend Richard and soon falls into a coma. Richard already lost one young friend to cancer (a jock named Jared, who acts as our narrator in the beginning and end of the book) and his girlfriend's tragic disappearing act is something he never truly gets over. The first section of the book shows us Richard and his friends -- sarcastic Hamilton, model Pam, lonely Wendy, smart but aloof Linus -- numbly trek into adulthood. They battle addictions, they question life, they marry -- and they all end up back in their old Canadian neighborhood.

Karen awakes two decades later to a world she finds disturbing -- empty, mindless worker drones simply existing. No free time, no fun, no leisure. While technology has grown stronger, she feels like the world has become emotionally cold and disconnected.

The frail, emaciated Karen reenters the life of her friends -- she gets to meet her daughter for the first time (she was impregnated by Richard on that night) -- and she also has visions of a coming apocalypse.

The apocalypse eventually arrives. The world "goes to sleep" -- people around the world simply pass out and die wherever they are. The aftermath is a world gone quiet. Streets filled with rotting corpses. Animals running wild in the street. The stink of death everywhere. Coupland has never been better than when he describes the horror of this plague. I think it may be the best writing he's ever done.

The friends and Megan (Richard and Karen's daughter) are the last people left on earth. Like all humans, they adapt to their situation. They watch videos and eat canned food.

At this point the three sections are like references to Stephen King -- "The Body" (a.k.a. "Stand by Me"), "It," and "The Stand."

Then things get "It's a Wonderful Life" as Jared rejoins the picture.

But the book goes deeper than that. In fact, before Coupland brings on his metaphor for our lack of beliefs and emotional remoteness, his book is quite sharp and effective in rendering the lives of his characters. Unlike in his previous novel, "Microserfs," where I often found it hard to identify with his characters, here I felt like I knew each one intimately. Some of their more cliche drug and drinking addictions are the point. Sometimes we're so lonely or angry or bitter that we don't know what to do but go to the cliche of drinking and drugs.

As horrifyingly real as the apocalypse is -- you can practically smell it -- I think Coupland's judgement is a wee too harsh. I think too much faith is just as bad as no faith at all. And I think religion (which is Coupland's major concern, it would seem) can be used too much to cover the reality of your problems.

Maybe my reaction is a bit of a "I resemble that condemnation" defense, but I don't think Coupland had to take the novel so far off the tracks, and I'm not really crazy about where the whole thing ends up (though the tone of the last section -- which is loose and blase -- will have you laughing).

But all flaws aside, this is an original, entertaining and powerful novel from a very talented author.

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.

Since 'Gen X' and then 'MicroSerfs' I've waited for another Douglas Coupland novel to grab me and slap me with a little optimism for my times, for my generation. As we approach the millenial turnover to 2000, Girlfriend in a Coma presents a fresh perspective in which to embrace a not so bright future for us humans. Coupland conveys a yearning for the next evolutionary step for humans, to open our eyes and take notice that our culture, technology and society at large are taking us someplace utterly meaningless. These are the things that Girlfriend in a Coma made me think about. Coupland's writing style is at it's best, taking me to a place that I could totally visualize and see myself participate as if it were my own girlfriend in a coma. The unique narrative perspectives of the Dead Football Star Jared and then Richard as well as Richards daughter Megan roll us around in a captivating plot that sends us over to a surrealistic armegeddon filled with pharmacy pillages and crunchy leakers everywhere(what a riot!), and then on to a conclusion that demands an introspection, a reevaluation of our own attempts at providing our lives with meaning with the space and time alotted to us by our maker. A profound subject painted by a master of our generation.

I have to agree with J. Seifert's review. This book might be thought provoking, eye opening, or supposedly mind-blowing for some teenager who's never considered that technology might not be the meaning of life, but for any adult who's already thought way beyond Coupland's very obvious comments on modern society, the book had nothing new or interesting to say and wasn't all that entertaining along the way. About the middle of the book, I was actually enjoying the plot and wanted to read more to see how things turned out for the self-obsessed whiners ("Oh, I'm so lonely." "I have no one to love." "What is the meaning of life?" Boo hoo.) who were the central characters. But then the end was SOOO preachy that it kind of ruined it for me. The ending was bizarre and over-simplistic at the same time -- I felt like a 13-year-old could have written it. In the end, I couldn't decide whether Coupland was advocating anarchy, religous fanatacism, or both. I'm sure everyone who reads it must have their own interpretation, which is only fair. But for me, the ending was silly, pointless, and had no clear or redeeming message. Sorry Coupland fans. I guess I won't join the club.

I'm standing in my girlfiend's living room (waiting on her), and discover this book on her desk. I start reading it and within three pages I am hooked on the author's writing style. So, she loans me the paperback and I plough right on through to the end. Never a dull moment, couldn't wait to read each chapter, and I felt it had a strong message. It really looks like a book that only a chick would read, but I thought it was a great adventure and enjoyed it enough to recommend to my daughter.

I picked up this book at the library based soley on the title; I had never read a Coupland book before. I picked it up because it is the title of a Smiths song.

Almost everyone who reviewed this seemed to find this book dull or pointless. I liked it. It was interesting and while it was trying to make a point about nonconformity that was not too subtle, it stilled managed to amuse me. Scattered throughout the dialouge are Smiths song titles. If you like the Smiths, like offbeat books, and have often daydreamed about being the last people alive on earth, then this book is amusing.

I think the author had a lot of fun with a lot of his readers who failed to catch the blatant refrences. It seemed to me as though he almost wrote the book based around the choosing of random lyrics in a random order and THAT had me giggling non stop. The book to me seemed like a weird concept album that not everybody got or found amusing. But fret not, it was still pretty good without the inside jokes.

I've read every book by this author (Douglas Coupland), and I've noticed several themes which apply specifically to readers of my generation (I'm 27 right now), but would apply more generally to anyone. This book follows the lives of a group of friends who are friends in high school and then stay in the same neighborhood, more or less, throughout their lives. This is something that Coupland has included in most of his books, and it's a theme that's endearing to me as I watch the departures and familial relationships among my own friends and family.

Without saying too much about the plot, I'll say that if you've read other books by Coupland, you'll PROBABLY love this book. The style is very similar to his other works, very introspective, very self-aware without becoming as self-obsessed as say, Dave Eggers. The story takes place in Vancouver (which is a bonus in my book, since I've always wanted to live there), and covers a span of about 16 years. Other reviewers have said that Coupland goes "too far" in this book, in that he departs from his usual topics by going in a sci-fi/fantasy direction. When he does, this book goes from being one of a dozen "normal" books written in the 1990s to being a gem. Maybe I'm the screwed up one, but two thirds of the way through the book, when things start getting freaky, this book became a page-turner. Couldn't put it down. And it was in a way that seemed completely natural, completely realistic, and the course these characters would take. By the end of the novel, it had given me cause to reflect upon my own life, and the lives of my friends, and the things we take for granted, the goals we assume we have in life, and the goals we should have.

Change Your Life. Any book that gives me an impetus to think about my own actions (not just observe the characters' actions) is a winner in my uh, book. You should check this book out at the library first, but I went ahead and bought it. Hardbound even. You should also check out "Generation X" and "MicroSerfs" by the same author....if you're between the ages of 25 and 35, it'll be like watching Your Life in print.

Also recommended: THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez

"Girlfriend in a Coma" is one of those titles that just sucks you in, and on the advice of a pal, I started reading the works of Douglas Coupland with this book. It's a good novel, with a weirdly haunting and poignant storyline. Actually, two of them. But even with a bit of choppiness in the story, it's a very moving, interesting book.

In the waning days of the 1970s, seventeen-year-old Karen falls into a coma during a party with her pals and her boyfriend, Richard. After making love with Richard on a mountaintop, she had confessed to having dreams of a frightening future about her friends and home; now, she lapses into a mysterious sleep that lasts another seventeen years. Nine months afterwards, she gives birth to a daughter, Megan, who is cared for by her parents.

Richard, still in love with her, remains near Karen and Megan, who grows up unhappy and insecure because of her depressed father and comatose mother. Her friends graduate and drift away from the place where they grew up, only to be drawn back for different reasons. And one night, when they have all come to the hospital -- Karen wakes up. As she struggles to accustom herself to the more advanced, bleaker world and the changes around her, she reveals on a talk show that the world is ending. And her words come true when the population of the world begins to fall into a sleep of death..

The most hard-hitting part of the book is, oddly, not the commentary on our increasingly soulless world or the end-of-the-world twists. It's the people in it, especially Richard, whose life increasingly revolves around Karen (he rarely, if ever, says that he loves her, but it's obvious he does) and Megan, whose unhappy feelings that she is Death result in a goth getup and a druggie biker boyfriend. Other people drift in and out (including the ghost of Jared, a classmate who gets to be the bemused observer), and their lives are in stark, sometimes chilling contrast to Richard's. (Especially junkies Hamilton and Pam)

There are some problems. The first half of the book is basically about Karen's coma and how it affects the people around her; the second half is the surreal, semi-supernatural apocalypse. It seems a little like two novellas crammed into the same book, because there aren't enough threads to tie the two halves together -- you just suddenly slam headlong into the end-of-the-world plot. And Coupland's vision of the apocalypse seems a little localized, but he more than makes up for this at the climax of the book, which is doubt the most beautiful part of the book. Sad and happy, haunting and liberating -- pure poetry. If nothing else, the book should be read because of that.

Coupland's writing shifts around from one part of the book to another. Sometimes it's fairly stark and matter-of-fact, but during the more introspective, symbolic, or just dreamy scenes he really lets rip with the prose. (And don't worry, the narration from a ghost is not particularly gimmicky -- Jared really does have a part to play)

"Girlfriend in a Coma" is in some ways not an easy book to read. But it raises some intriguing what-ifs and features some truly beautiful scenes and memorable characters. Definitely recommended.