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Mar 31, 2012weirdduck88 rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
I'm surprised the rating isn't higher on this book, but I think some people seem to have missed the point. This is not a book against drugs or pharmaceutical companies or natural disasters. Those merely provide the backdrop into exploring the book's main themes, notably about people's dependency for electronics cause a rift between human communication, the importance of language, books, and storytelling, and the fragmentation and disunity of people, to the point where we value solitude more than anything else. Particularly the last point, I feel like this book is even more relevant than ever, what with cellphones, ipods/ipads all creating a bubble around us. This book is not so much about the mystery of the bees as much as the parallels of bees to humans, and the warnings to and about humanity. This is my first Coupland novel, and I was very engaged in the storytelling and the mystery of the plot. The writing and structure is interesting, and it works fairly well, although the voices do echo traces of each other (which, conveniently, I suppose, is the point though). Looking forward to my next Douglas Coupland read!