Reading Going Out made me understand for the first time why Thomas continually draws the Coupland comparisons - which isn't necessarily a good thing (it's been years since I read him, and even at the time I was fairly iffy) as far as I'm concerned. As with a few books I've read lately, it didn't seem to take off until about midway through - initially it just seems to be just too deliberately shooting for zeitgeistal flavour and wasn't doing a great deal for me, though that early section is punchy enough to keep me going. Where it takes off is at about the point where everyone comes together for the road trip and starts running around completing various related missions (the shopping trip, the spacesuit construction), Leanne reveals that she thinks she's a witch, and things generally really begin percolating. I raced through that section to about two or three chapters from the end this morning on the bus.
It's not that the novel is especially life-affirming - though it shoots for that in the final chapter, and doesn't really get there - but somehow it worked upon me anyway. It's quite different from PopCo and The End of Mr Y, and not as good as those others, but even still, it has something.
