After Columbine, safety procedures in school in both the United States and Canada were drastically altered, schools started to practice different types of emergency's including terrorist, and other hostile scenarios. Larger schools also started implementing metal detectors, and bag checks. It was one of the larger safety concerns in the States at the time, however any changes in Canada, were not nearly as considerable. In this Canadian novel there is a shooting in a Canadian school, and it goes to show the aftermath, and impact it can make on peoples lives. This was a brilliant novel in the sense that Coupland demonstrated how just because we live in Canada, these kind of things can still happen. He has a type of writing in this novel that reveals four different perspectives, and how a school shooting has effected each one of them. The way he portrays the shooting is brilliant, yet easy.
After the shooting , all four perspectives are immediately connected through religion and morals. The main character Jason goes missing, and his father and long time friend both look for assurance in religion. "Coupland takes an insightful look at religion, loss and forgiveness and how everyone is always looking for, as he puts it, the 'equation that makes it all equate.'" (The Calgary Herald) His writing style in this aspect is persuasive and makes you feel for the characters. Jason's father in the story after he finds out that Jason is missing, “You might ask me whether I still believe in God; I do – and maybe not even in the best sense of the word ‘believe.’ In the end, it might boil down to some sort of insurance equation to the effect that it’s three percent easier to believe than not to believe.”(Hey, Nostradamus!)
