This is really one of is bests. ( )

I didn't really get this book, which maybe is my fault for listening to it on vacation, but I couldn't really follow the threads of plot or theme through the four different narrators. I enjoyed the prose, but even so many good metaphors are eventually tiresome. I always enjoy discussions of religion from social and philosophical perspectives. I'm sure if I thought more about it and talked about it to others, I would appreciate this story more. ( )

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I guess it's the safest year to read it since it was written since school is rarely in attendance, there's people at doors to monitor who's coming in due to the pandemic...so I haven't heard of any school shootings this year. Still, it's tough to read about it even in fiction. That said, the story has four narrators and I found the best one Cheryl, who was narrating after her death about events leading up to and including the shooting. After that, the book went downhill for me until a slight uptick with the final character's turn at narrating. ( )

Warning: Do not read this while depressed.

My primary coping mechanism whilst depressed is reading. But picking up a random work from the stack of 200 or so unread books isn't gonna do the job. The book has to be undemanding in terms effort to read and preferably plot-driven and gripping. James Blish was my go-to author in this circumstance for many years but I've read all his novels too many times in recent years. Ditto a number of other authors who I know would fit the bill. Which leads back to the unread pile and taking a bit of a risk. Hence Douglas Coupland who has only let me down once in half a dozen or so books and has always been fairly compelling. Now, across all the books I've read by Coupland, the general themes have remained constant; how to cope with a modern world that isolates people and offers no automatic purpose in life. The reason this hasn't become boring or tiresome is that he seems to come at the question from an at least slightly different angle each time, his answers aren't always the same (if he gives any in that particular book) and the general tone and mood varies too. So in Generation X we are offered, run away to Mexico, as a solution. In Microserfs, make virtual Lego (or is that Jpod?) or more seriously, work for yourself, not some giant inhuman corporation. In Miss Wyoming, running away doesn't work - so Generation X turns out not to have the right answer after all. And so on. Some of these are post-modern and ironic, even openly comic e.g. Generation X and Jpod. Others are more or less earnest, like Eleanor Rigby and Miss Wyoming. And here's the risk - some are really upbeat and others are not. This one also shows Coupland's great skill with first person voice character-creation.

So Hey Nostradamus! Starts with a school shooting massacre obviously intended to be reminiscent of the Columbine incident and then gallops off into a discussion of religion, redemption, despair, forgiveness and how parents can screw up their children. The plot is gripping but in retrospect completely preposterous and goes off in directions I would never have guessed. The protagonists have various fates and one is left to sift through the aftermath and try to figure out what, if anything, Coupland is saying about Christianity. It's no straightforward thumbs up or thumbs down. And the outcome for some people is optimistic, for others - well - don't read this book if you are depressed. ( )

As pointed out in William Sutcliffe’s review in The Independent, the “journal entry” format of the second and third parts occasionally strains credibility. Nevertheless, I found it to be a fitting style, and very effective in building empathy with the characters. The audiobook narration probably helped in that regard - the voice actors give a wonderfully expressive performance.

Religious fundamentalism is a primary topic here, but if the novel is read as a criticism of - or attempt at deep reflection on - such beliefs, it will leave much to be desired. The mind of a “true believer” is only explored in Reg, who is an extreme and idiosyncratic example. Still, the behaviors of Kent (in trying to remain carefully neutral when his brother is accused of involvement with the shooting) and Reg (in using bizarre spiritual logic to declare his son a murderer and to declare that one of his grandsons must be soulless) show how privileging belief over empathy can cause senseless divisions in a family, tragically wasting the opportunity for closeness.

I would focus not on the religious angle, but simply on the characters dealing with trauma. Despite some flaws, it’s engaging and poignant.

"What surprises me about humanity is that in the end such a narrow range of plights defines our moral lives." ( )