Hey Nostradamus! Cheryl

     The first section of the novel Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland starts with one of the protagonist Cheryl who is writing in the year 1988. The story is being told through Cheryl's point of view who we find is telling her story from beyond the grave. In the beginning Cheryl starts off the chapter by giving the reader a mental picture of her whereabouts in her house and what she is thinking as she is getting ready for school. This is important because she is able to connect more to them by letting them know what she is feeling and seeing step by step. Cheryl is seventeen and part of a group called Youth Alive!; a group of very faithful young Christians; which she joined being the new girl in town to get close to a boy she likes named Jason. After falling in love with Jason they begin to date and then secretly runaway to Vegas to get married. It is October 4th 1988 and she has just found out she is pregnant and is on her way to school to tell Jason. After a short and sour discussion she progresses through the rest of the day having to deal with her fellow Youth Aliver's who have been continuously inquisitive about her relationship with Jason. That day Cheryl decides to have lunch in the cafeteria to continue her talk with Jason, instead of going out with her Out to Lunch Bunch; a group within Youth Alive! that is made up of only girls who go off campus to have lunch and confess their "sins". However a terrible accident happens that day and three fellow students walk into the cafeteria with guns and start a massacre that kills many students including Cheryl.

     I am really enjoying this novel so far. I feel like by Cheryl giving details step by step of her whereabouts in the novel I can really get a feel of what is going on. Through out the chapter Cheryl includes small prayers to God by her and other students and parents of students. I think that by doing this it has allowed me to really feel the grief of what is going on while the massacre is taking place. I feel that it puts a lot of the Christianity portion of the novel into perspective without Coupland including any of his own judgement. I thought that it was interesting to see the way the Youth Alive! students acted I felt that it was hypocritical because they are supposedly living life the way God would want them too but they are the most judgmental towards Cheryl and judgement is not something that their faith tells them isn't right because only God can be the one to judge. Although the story is fiction I feel that by Coupland letting his protagonist tell their stories step by step it makes it seem like it is real, and also because this is something that can really happen. He lets Cheryl show her last thoughts and feelings before she dies.