Kiss my face. This is a great read.
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Ignore all the doommongers and beardstrokers. 'Its not as good as this, its not as long as that, it does quite smell like the last one'. Yadda, Yadda, Yadda. The Gum Thief is truly excellent. If you read it and don't enjoy it, you were probably killed last year or at the very least paralysed from the neck up in a horrific lawnmower accident.
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Live to work - no ... work to live.
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Coupland is back writing about normal people with mind-numbing jobs - this time at a stationery superstore. The main characters are Roger, a 40-something alcoholic divorcee, is writing a Cheeveresque novel, and Bethany, a 20 year old goth who's biding time waiting for something to happen with her life.
They don't talk to each other at work, but after Bethany discovers Roger's journal she starts writing him letters.
This modern take on a classic 'roman des lettres' manages to keep the plot moving well, alternating between the voices, and adding Bethany's mum, another letter writer later. Interspersed between the letters are the chapters of Roger's awful novel (imagine an American 'Abigail's party').
Enjoyable, but the ending is rushed and you feel slightly short-changed by it.
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The Gum Thief
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Not entirely sure what I thought of this book! I liked the characters and the diary/letter format. I also enjoyed the cringeworthy novel within a novel. However, I'm not convinced that it all worked together or why the book was written in such a way. The ending seemed to arrive very abruptly as well. Maybe I just didn't get it.
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Disappointing direction for Coupland
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I quite liked JPod, it wasn't anywhere near Coupland's best work but it felt familiar. What I didn't like about it was the inclusion of himself as a character, and I feel this book takes that premise to another level. Written entirely as notes written by an author, it feels unfinished and amateur, and I can't help feel that Coupland came up with the idea and wrote it within the space of a couple of weeks. Not to spoil the ending but it summed up my thoughts of the entire book to a tee.
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Back on form
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I didn't rate jPod, thought Coupland was rehashing old ground when he is particularly good at pushing the boundaries. But with this book, he's back on form. Great plot device to have a novel within a novel and I thought Glove Pond was brilliant! Spot on reading this towards the end of the year, Christmas can be so tiring and Coupland's book hits the mark.
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