Like I Care by Stephen Guppy


Like I Care
Title : Like I Care
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1926639537
ISBN-10 : 9781926639536
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 225
Publication : First published November 1, 2012

Have you ever been overwhelmed by acronyms? Confused by technology? Inundated by irony, post-modernism, meta-ness and inexplicable catch phrases? If so, you are not alone. Like I Care is a novel that explores the interconnected stories of a large cast of characters, none of whom has any clue how to act in a world where feelings are best expressed in three letters or less, and - even though it changes constantly and no one knows what exactly it is – being cool is the only currency that seems to be worth anything. A funny, biting and prescient satire of modern times, Stephen Guppy has written a novel that asks the question "What the Hell is going on, and why don’t I understand any of it?"

Like I Care Reviews

  • Steve

    A fast moving (and fast reading!) romp of a novel, and it does a great job of keeping lots of balls in the air as it follows a large cast of connected characters of different ages over the course of a couple of days in (mostly) Vancouver. Some of the plotlines are more absurd and active than others, which was fun, but what really propels the novel are the overdriven language of technology, slang, abbreviation, and late (post?) postmodernity. It's cracklingly vivid portrait of an exaggerated time and place, of strained families and young people struggling to find a direction — familiar topics for literary fiction, then — but that's in no way a problem: it's a time and place well worth visiting, and the anxieties about emerging technologies, the simulacrum of everyday life, etc. are pretty compelling and very much the kinds of things I like to consider in fiction. Like Joshua Mohr's Fight Song, this is a smart, funny, and enjoyable depiction of the quotidian impacts of rapid technological change (that phrase of mine probably makes it sounds like less fun than it is).

    What works against the book a bit is what felt to me like a disconnect between the back cover description/marketing copy and the novel itself: the copy suggests it will be much more action-driven and that certain elements ultimately tangential to the story will be central. There's also an emphasis in the description on the story being set "in the future," but the specificity of product names, webservices, devices (eg, clamshell vs. touchscreen phones), abbreviated texting language that is already more or less out of use, etc. all make it feel very much in the past and in a very specific rather than timeless moment of the past. That doesn't diminish the pleasure of reading the story, not at all, but it creates a bit of a disjunction between set-up and delivery. There were also quite a few copyediting errors (names with multiple spellings, mis-directed quotation marks, etc) that were distracting and at times confusing.