Customer Reviews
Decent Coupland, but not exceptional - By: M. G. Wilson, 06 Dec 2008 
Decent Coupland but not exceptional, which is to say that it's still pretty good by anyone else's standards. If you know you already like Coupland, worth reading, if you don't know, this wouldn't be the place to start.
Kiss my face. This is a great read. - By: Bod, 20 Jun 2008 
Ignore all the doommongers & 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 & don't enjoy it, you were probably killed last year or at the very least paralysed from the neck upin a horrific lawnmower accident.
Live to work - no ... work to live. - By: Annabel Gaskell, 10 Apr 2008 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, & 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, & 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 & you feel slightly short-changed by it.
The Gum Thief - By: gerty guinea, 27 Feb 2008 Not entirely sure what I thought of this book! I liked the characters & 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 writtenin such a way. The ending seemed to arrive very abruptly as well. Maybe I just didn't get it.
Disappointing direction for Coupland - By: Phil Betjeman, 01 Feb 2008 
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, & I feel this book takes that premise to another level. Written entirely as notes written by an author, it feels unfinished & amateur, & I can't help feel that Coupland came up with the idea & 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.
