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Nov 23, 2007

John rated it:

I have long been an avid Coupland fan and I first read "Hey, Nostradamus" when it was first released several years ago. It moved me to tears, which doesn't happen entirely often, and stayed and played around in my head for several days after I finished it.

I am reading it again, now. In the last sixth months, two of my very dear friends, one 27 and the other 26, were killed, one accidentally and the other murdered. They have mounted into a loss I've found I can't quite get More...

2 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

I wanted the book to be so much MORE. I was really intrigued by the description.

“As far as I could tell, Jason and I were the only married students to have attended Delbrook. It wasn’t a neighborhood that married young. It was neither religious nor irreligious, although back in the eleventh grade English class I did a tally of the twenty-six students therein: five abortions, three dope dealers, two total sluts, and one perpetual juvenile delinquent. I think that’s what softened More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 16, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

This book really moved me, which is a total surprise being that I grabbed it at the library because I liked its cover. I know this could have been a bad idea, but I guess sometimes a good cover leads to a good inside too. I love how the author gives each character a distinctly realistic voice, something that is rare in these multi-perspective volumes. It is beautiful how we see not only the perceptions of the character's own motives, but each person's perceptions of the other characters' motives More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 06, 2007

Joanna rated it:

I wish I could give this book 0 stars, that's how much I hate it. I bought it for $3.00 from a Barnes & Noble, and thought I'd amuse myself with it on a plane-ride home. Not only did I want to grind my eyes out forever, I wanted to make it impossible to remember by causing permanent brain injury to myself.

Someone told me, just the other day, when I was snarking on this novel that the authors of dime-store romance novels have more artistic and creative prose than Coupland. It is my More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 12, 2010

Jason rated it:

Coupland 1) never convinces me that Reg's unrelenting, myopic, savage pieties could (let alone would) spring from a Mennonite upbringing and worldview (indeed, Coupland exhibits so little understanding of the Mennonite perspective as to leave one wondering why Reg is written as having come from a Mennonite home in the first place), and 2) remains wearily incapable of giving his characters voices and ways of seeing the world distinct either from one another or from himself, and 3) commits the car More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 23, 2008

Ruth rated it:

*mild spoilers below*

I love Douglas Coupland. He just has this way of seeing through the superficialness of our culture and pulling so much depth and meaning out of it. His characters experience such tremendous growth. And he is so funny. I am always alternating between being on the verge of tears and laughing outloud. Sometimes it happens at the same time.

This story is about a girl who is killed in a school shooting and how the lives of those who love her are affect More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Amanda rated it:

This is not a book that might have gotten my attention on the bookshelf, but was recommended to me by two close friends. So I picked it up at the bookstore when it was on the bargain shelf for $5 and I had a gift certificate. It then sat on my shelf for a few months until I started this whole reading marathon.
I'm sorry I waited so long to read it. The way the 4 narrators told their stories and how you were able to understand how the actions of one person can affect so many people was wo More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 16, 2008

Tiny Pants rated it:

After reading JPod, I swore to myself I would still read this book in spite of how unbelievably horrible JPod was. Hey Nostradamus! was pretty good, even if DC relies on so many of the same conventions throughout his books -- hired foreign goons, lengthy descriptions of Vancouver, listing things that are depressing about living alone, parents' quirky sex lives, etc. -- that I spent the entire first fourth of this book trying to figure out if I had read it before. By the end, I was sure I hadn't, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 16, 2007

marilyn rated it:

best coupland in a long time and though there are still annoying parts, it certainly doesn't blur together like some of his other books in the last 10 years.

the good parts are so unerringly perfect and divine. the idea makes me giddy with excitement (the first quarter is narrated by a 16-year-old born again christian girl who's just been shot in a high school massacre, and is in some place after death but still without knowledge of whether there is a heaven or hell or just nothingne More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 19, 2009

Angeline rated it:

The only reason I bought this book was the old-school cover and its Virgin Suicides-esque feel. I had not gotten my hopes up or anything for this book, and needless to say, it was a very pleasant surprise.

Coupland is an amazing author. He is capable of putting himself in the shoes of a teenage girl in her deathly innocence and making himself believable; in the shoes of a middle-aged man with serious problems and making himself believable; in the shoes of a middle-aged woman with hope More...

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Feb 09, 2009

Harry rated it:

I really enjoyed Generation X, back in the far-off past when I first read it, but I think it felt like a one-off, or at least like the style might get old pretty quickly. But I’ve read quite a few of them now, over the years, and while some are better than others I’ve always enjoyed them. Including this one. It centres around a man who is the survivor of a Columbine-type high school massacre, years after the event.

It’s possibly less Couplandy than some of them. What I think of being More...

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Dec 31, 2011

Tim rated it:

The book is in four parts dealing with a group of people living in and around Vancouver, BC. The first part is written from Cheryl's point of view as she dies in a high school shooting (I don't think I could have read this book at any time without something happening in the news). The second part is Jason, her boyfriend and secret husband who has to cope with the media attention of being a survivor of the incident. The third part is picked up by Heather, a woman he hooks up with over 10 years af More...

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Jan 15, 2010

Sometimes rated it:

I'm scaring myself, again. I'm reading Hey Nostradamus!, a book I've had for some time but never read before. As I'm reading it there's something eerily familiar, and I keep thinking of a scene I remember from a Douglas Coupland novel about these two misfits hooking up in a Toys-R-Us. I think it must be from another book, but I don't remember which one.

Then halfway through the book I read the very scene I've been remembering. These strange details I remember are all there. This book More...

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Oct 02, 2009

Lynda rated it:

This book was centered around four main characters: Cheryl, Jason, Heather and Reg. The book is divided into four parts, one for each character.

In the first part, Cheryl describes the Columbine-like shooting in her school during her senior year in 1988. Her and her boyfriend Jason had just gotten secretly married six weeks ago and she just found out last night that she was pregnant. She goes back and forth between the events that led to her death and the events that led to her marria More...

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Jul 17, 2009

Kristiana rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jun 10, 2010

Sher rated it:

Some things about this book were so good, but as a whole, I am still pondering whether I could really get with it or not. So I guess I haven't been able to yet.

It turned out not to be anything like the story I thought it would be. I thought the whole story was going to be about Cheryl, the 17-year-old, secretly married, newly pregnant high-schooler who was killed in a Columbine-type massacre. As it turns out, it is much more about her young husband, Jason, and the changes to his l More...

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Sep 20, 2007

McLean&Eakin rated it:

Leighanne:
Considering our country's recent history wih school shootings, I think Hey Nostradamus! should be required reading for everyone who can read. This is an intense novel about four people whose lives are inexricably and forever tied to one event that occured in 1988. It's an exploration of faith and how, under certain circumstances, it can either flourish or shrivel

Inspirational, heartbreaking and full of humor and hope, Hey Nostadamus! is an absolute must read

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 03, 2011

Teresa rated it:

I knew basically nothing about this book before I started reading it. And even though the flap mentions a massacre in the high school (not a spoiler), I wasn't prepared for those details, and I as read the first part, I actually felt very scared, which was quite appropriate for what I was reading. At the end, I again felt quite emotional, for different reasons, and was impressed with what the author could do.

Crazy things happen in this book, but only one felt very unrealistic -- and More...

25 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jun 02, 2009

Erika rated it:

Okay, so a few years ago I was seeing this book everywhere. But I never actually bothered to find out what it was about. Judging it by its cover and title I figured it would be kind of funny and knowing Coupland was supposed this great writer about pop culture things I thought the humour would go over my head, hence giving me no reason to read it.

Then last week I saw it in the library and figured, "hey, why not?". This book turned out to be very serious to me. How could one More...

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Apr 09, 2011

Amy (SpedBug) rated it:

Hey Nostradamus opens with a high-school shooting spree much like Columbine and then explores the shooting's impact on the lives of those people directly and indirectly involved. The book is written in sections from four different perspectives. First, Cheryl, a 17-year-old girl who was shot and killed that day, tells her tale, then her high school sweetheart, Jason, whose perspective comes 11 years after the shooting and is written on scraps of paper, addressing his twin 'nephews'. We then hear More...

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Aug 07, 2010

Elizabeth rated it:

Upon finishing this book I am mostly confused - I think it's in some sort of good way - but I'm not really sure.

I think this has something to do with real un-conclusive ending (which isn't a bad thing), the fact that I read most of this book when I was only half-awake, and in removed bits and pieces. Mostly I just came away with feelings, the main one being that Coupland doesn't seem to either be fully aware of what he wants to say, or doesn't actually want to come right out and say it More...

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Dec 15, 2009

Nic rated it:

This is a book about some very broken people. The book starts off in the voice of a 17 year old girl going through a terrible tragedy, and I was thinking to myself, "oh no, this is a crappy teenage angst book." But that part ends and it switches to the voice of her boyfriend 20 years later. He is really the central character, and is very broken but likable and has a certain shallow depth as you understand the same events with time and distance. Then the voice switches to his fiance More...

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Oct 05, 2010

kb rated it:

This book just about killed me that I don't even know where to start. Okay, I know - let's start with the author and title. To be honest, Coupland strikes me as someone I can't ever be best buddies with. YET I keep on being innerested with him, with his works. So when I saw Hey! Nostradamus at a really really low price, I wanted to have it in spite of this cloud over me saying, "You'll read this but will you appreciate it?"
No need to make you guess - I did appreciate it. Even bey More...

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Aug 12, 2007

Molly rated it:

The characters were wonderful--real, fully-drawn people who you wanted to get to know better. And I loved the school shooting premise, which Coupland handled with grace despite it beginning such a difficult topic to broach. But the end of the book felt a bit incomplete to me. I wanted more resolution with the characters, which was not a problem in Coupland's story "Patty Hearst" (my all-time favorite) but bothered me here.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 03, 2009

Rose rated it:

This book had moments of genius, but I didn't walk away going, "WOW!" So I can't quite rate it as more than 3.5.

There are a lot of grotesque shows of religious piety in this book, and Coupland often touches on the theme that people generally get spirituality totally wrong. But all four narrators of this story are, in some way, believers. So, I think it's a nice quality to combine the skepticism with these (generally) sympathetic characters.

I found a couple More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 09, 2009

Jessica rated it:

I'm going to start by saying that Douglas Coupland is one of my new favorite authors. His writing style is easy to fall in love with and his story plots suck you in until the end, at which point you want to read more. "I am aware that there is a world out there that functions without regard to me. There are wars and budgets and bombings and vast dimensions of wealth and greed and ambition and corruption. And yet, I don't feel a part of that world, and I wouldn't know how to join it if I tri More...

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Jul 30, 2007

Robyn rated it:

I went to a reading with Irvine Welsh and Doug Copeland where Doug read from Porno (a challenge given the thick Sco'ish brogue it's written in) and Welsh read from Hey Nostradamus. That was great. Also, Doug has some pretty great ideas. Unfortunately, not many of them are in this book and it doesn't help that he's just not a very good writer.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 10, 2011

Erin E rated it:

This is my first audio book and I must say the next time I choose an audio book I will either a) have to avoid listening to it while in traffic (this book was emotionally moving, riviting along with shocking) or b) sitting in the bath tub.

I have read only one other Coupland novel The Gum Thief and I found the novel haunting yet real it is not often that can be said about an author.

This is the story or young lovers, secretly married, secretly having a baby and then suddenly in More...

2 comments like

Mar 21, 2011

Brandon rated it:

I picked this book up randomly at the university bookstore my freshman year. I only picked it up because of the title (I love making fun of people that try to read into Nostradamus' nonsense). I'm so glad that the book jumped out at me, because I fell in love with it as soon as I started reading.
I ended up sitting in my dorm the entire weekend completely sucked in by coupland's words. Yes, Coupland is guilty of bashing his beliefs and world views into his readers' heads, but what author More...

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Sep 24, 2010

Michelle rated it:

My first Douglas Coupland novel. I used to pick this book up a lot in bookstores and read the back and think about buying it but never getting around to it. Anyways, the book follows the events of a tragic high school massacre, and is written from four POVs. The first is of a girl who was a victim, the second is her boyfriend/secret husband, the third is the new girlfriend of the survived boyfriend, and the last is the boy's father. The novel spans about 2 decades, and deals a lot with faith and More...

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