THE COMA by Alex Garland ⭐⭐⭐

Spoilers Ahead

A creative, novella-sized story from a talented writer exploring the experience of a coma patient. Or is it?

There were passages that made me feel like I was the one hit on the head, and there were others that I found an apprehensive fear gripping me just as hard as the narrator. I don’t know why I chose to read this book when I did besides it’s length, or how I even came to find it and buy it. But it’s a cooky little thing that tripped me out and had me questioning exactly what it means to be “conscious”.

There’s something wickedly unknowable about the human brain and its role in keeping us tethered to reality. Stories like this one mirror ones from the real-world, true stories of out-of-body experiences and religious visions. Grand hallucinations of heaven and hell, and worse, if there is such a place. Is all of that just a neuron over from dreaming? Or is reading this right now the dream? I left this feeling a dark dread, like maybe we aren’t fully prepared to understand consciousness and the mind. I’m just impressed someone had the writing chops to prove it.