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Shampoo Planet
Tyler Johnson is a 20-year-old MTV child. Once a baby raised in a hippie commune, he is now an ambitious Reagan youth dreaming of a career with the corporation whose offices his mother once firebombed.
282 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1992
92 people are currently reading
2,956 people want to read
About the author
Douglas Coupland
88 books4,635 followersDouglas Coupland is Canadian, born on a Canadian Air Force base near Baden-Baden, Germany, on December 30, 1961. In 1965 his family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he continues to live and work. Coupland has studied art and design in Vancouver, Canada, Milan, Italy and Sapporo, Japan. His first novel, Generation X, was published in March of 1991. Since then he has published nine novels and several non-fiction books in 35 languages and most countries on earth. He has written and performed for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, England, and in 2001 resumed his practice as a visual artist, with exhibitions in spaces in North America, Europe and Asia. 2006 marks the premiere of the feature film Everything's Gone Green, his first story written specifically for the screen and not adapted from any previous work. A TV series (13 one-hour episodes) based on his novel, jPod premieres on the CBC in January, 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 321 reviews
August 4, 2011
I feel like I've already reviewed Shampoo Planet because I've reviewed (I think) three other Coupland books. Don't get me wrong, I like Coupland and I like Shampoo Planet. But the Coupland novels I've read hold at least a few common elements:
1) An articulate, hyper-self aware protagonist.
2) His/her messed up but well-intentioned immediate family.
3) A focus on consumer culture and changing technology.
4) Fear of poverty and crappy jobs.
I think I could go on with more common elements, but I'll stop there. Now, and I want to make this clear, if I'm criticizing Coupland for recycling themes, settings, and characters, he gets a slap on the wrist at most. He's good enough to get away with these small crimes, and it's not like other authors don't navigate the same territory over and over again, anyway. I'm tempted to argue that recurring themes fit well with Coupland's nod to disposable culture, but that might be pushing it.
Although the author's books kind of read the same Shampoo Planet is my favorite so far and will probably stick in my memory more than the other three. This novel's ending is much more emotional and surreal than the others'. The varied settings (Paris, L.A., Eastern Washington) keep the storyline and characters moving. If I'm not mistaken Shampoo Planet was Coupland's first post-Generation X (I've not read that one) novel. Assuming he was under pressure to notch another hit, Coupland deserves credit for producing a strong, quick read. His books are perfect for plane rides and summer afternoons. They're thoughtful without requiring intense attention. Coupland writes best paragraph to paragraph, comparing and connecting disparate elements and analogies, seeing more than most observers do in, for example, a depressing, mostly shut down mall. If I were to recommend any Coupland (but remember, I've only read four of his books), I think I'd start with Shampoo Planet. I'm also curious as to why Coupland seems to occupy his own space, if you will, as a writer; he's carved out his own niche better than most, I think, although I've never met anyone who said “My GOD, Doug Coupland is my favorite writer!” I don't believe I've even ever met a huge fan. He's good, though, and perhaps overlooked and pigeonholed because of the Generation X hype. Next summer I'll read another one. And I'll probably remember most of Shampoo Planet, or at least more about it than the other Coupland books I've read.
1) An articulate, hyper-self aware protagonist.
2) His/her messed up but well-intentioned immediate family.
3) A focus on consumer culture and changing technology.
4) Fear of poverty and crappy jobs.
I think I could go on with more common elements, but I'll stop there. Now, and I want to make this clear, if I'm criticizing Coupland for recycling themes, settings, and characters, he gets a slap on the wrist at most. He's good enough to get away with these small crimes, and it's not like other authors don't navigate the same territory over and over again, anyway. I'm tempted to argue that recurring themes fit well with Coupland's nod to disposable culture, but that might be pushing it.
Although the author's books kind of read the same Shampoo Planet is my favorite so far and will probably stick in my memory more than the other three. This novel's ending is much more emotional and surreal than the others'. The varied settings (Paris, L.A., Eastern Washington) keep the storyline and characters moving. If I'm not mistaken Shampoo Planet was Coupland's first post-Generation X (I've not read that one) novel. Assuming he was under pressure to notch another hit, Coupland deserves credit for producing a strong, quick read. His books are perfect for plane rides and summer afternoons. They're thoughtful without requiring intense attention. Coupland writes best paragraph to paragraph, comparing and connecting disparate elements and analogies, seeing more than most observers do in, for example, a depressing, mostly shut down mall. If I were to recommend any Coupland (but remember, I've only read four of his books), I think I'd start with Shampoo Planet. I'm also curious as to why Coupland seems to occupy his own space, if you will, as a writer; he's carved out his own niche better than most, I think, although I've never met anyone who said “My GOD, Doug Coupland is my favorite writer!” I don't believe I've even ever met a huge fan. He's good, though, and perhaps overlooked and pigeonholed because of the Generation X hype. Next summer I'll read another one. And I'll probably remember most of Shampoo Planet, or at least more about it than the other Coupland books I've read.
September 29, 2010
douglas coupland is depressing as hell. i finished this book a bit ago and since then i have been wrapped in this loop of thought about how my generation has absolutely no prospects and will continue to exist in the stasis of unhappiness until we die. and dying would end up being one of the best parts of our lives.
but, then again, i have been trying to figure out whether the moon spins on an axis and around the earth or just around the earth. and, you know, whether or not you walk faster if you walk with the rotation of the earth as opposed to against it.
so, this is why i like doug coupland. who else would inspire such diversity. i dont know. so, like microserfs this book was certainly dated and in the beginning it was way easier to notice it but after you immerse in this time you kind of forget it.
this book reminds me alot of my childhood and that makes it suck more/more awesome.
but, then again, i have been trying to figure out whether the moon spins on an axis and around the earth or just around the earth. and, you know, whether or not you walk faster if you walk with the rotation of the earth as opposed to against it.
so, this is why i like doug coupland. who else would inspire such diversity. i dont know. so, like microserfs this book was certainly dated and in the beginning it was way easier to notice it but after you immerse in this time you kind of forget it.
this book reminds me alot of my childhood and that makes it suck more/more awesome.
August 5, 2011
This book was fantastic. It perfectly captured the mood and aura of the early 90s. Tyler reminded me of a far less pretentious and whiny and more lovable Holden Caulfield. Anna-Louise reminded me, almost scarily, of myself. Coupland has a way of utilizing small, insidious devices to emphasize a certain attitude; an excellent example of this was the copious use of brand-names, each bearing a trademark symbol. I was fascinated by the way Coupland himself, in writing the novel, was so clearly rooting for certain characters, i.e. Anna-Louise over Stephanie. The collision between the older flower-child generation and the so-called "global teens" was palpable, but not hostile. As a reader, I would have liked to see the eating disorders subtopic delved into more deeply--there is scarce mention of what turned Anna-Louise from someone whom "[cannibals] would have... in the pot in two seconds" to "the new superskinny Anna-Louise," other than a vague reference to "The Purge." All in all, though, I can't say enough good things about this book, and I would dare say it's a modern classic.
August 5, 2015
A mid-range Coupland, neither his strongest or weakest, which by most standards means superb. His characters are often merely a manifestation of quirks or traits, and situations and events are often absurd. For me what makes Coupland magical is his ability to use unreal elements to tell a story that truthfully reflects our reality, like a bagful of rubbish used to make a beautiful collage. These are not real, or even realistic, people or events, but this IS your world, I always feel I'm being told. And as ugly and horrible as we've made it, there is in Coupland's work always hope. Whatever mess we make, it still might not be too late to salvage something. Modern parables, then, perhaps. Shampoo Planet wouldn't be my starting point for turning people onto Coupland, but it's a fine, fine book nevertheless.
June 5, 2007
An early Coupland (his second novel), I probably didn't pick the best time to read this as a lot of it deals with money worries. In fact, there's a whole 'Down and Out in L.A.' section and—yeah. Bit close to home, that. I don't know if it's the result of my trying to subconsciously distance myself, but this book didn't reach me as much as some of his others; there were sequences I loved, like the bits about 20-year-old protagonist Tyler's trip to Paris, and his visit to Père Lachaise Cemetery (burial place of Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison, among others, and a place I visited when I was 17), but I couldn't get into it as much as some of Coupland's other books, even the insane ones. However, as is often the case with Coupland's novels, the closing scene is—almost atypically in relation to the rest of the book—beautiful, serene, and moving.
October 20, 2012
So, I'd heard of Coupland for years, of course. In fact, this book may have made my reading list way back when I was working in the downtown Oakland Waldenbooks around the time the book originally came out. Some things take longer than others to get to.
Coupland, the disaffected young writer who was supposed to be a voice for my generation. Or, well, for people slightly older than me. Or maybe I came in on the edge of Generation X (which will be another topic for another time). Coupland, who introduced the ironic age we live in now, or so the media would have us believe...Oh, wait. No. THOSE people, the ones who drip irony from their too-tight jeans as they walk down the street, are actually younger than me. They're even younger than Generation Y, the group of people represented in this novel, folks who want it all and get nothing.
I belong in no one group. This is, naturally, why there's something in Coupland's work which resonates with me.
I know, I know: everyone should start with Generation X. I didn't. I started here, and I actually like this novel better (even though Wikipedia says Coupland himself finds it contrived). In a rather strange way, it's mostly forgettable--but it's forgettable without exactly being forgettable, if you know what I mean. Of course you do. And you don't.
The book is populated with what I gather are the typical Coupland young adults--those who are working jobs well below their abilities and possibly their training; who are too introspective and smart and insightful for their own good; who used to have dreams and goals that were socially acceptable, but who have dropped these as unattainable empty promises and embraced smaller, more symbolic achievements. These are American children who are left to find a new way to rebel after their parents fought the culture wars of the 60s and 70s--the culture wars no one is quite sure who won. And, of course, Coupland wrote these characters in the wake of the plasticine 1980s, which means there is the lingering obsession with that old American Dream of wealth and status even as the realization dawns that such an obsession is mostly based on lies.
This sounds a little bleak, and it is. But it's a soft and possibly uniquely American kind of bleak, where repression is still lit with privilege and a small bit of whimsy. A lot has been made of how Coupland's youths are aimless, but I think in this novel in articular the main character is actually searching for quite a lot. The sensation of being lost comes naturally when a person must name for themselves what it is they're ultimately looking for, beyond any cultural mythos which has been handed down to them, beyond the goals other adults set for them early in their lives. The main character here, Tyler, has dreams of working for the defense corporation Bechtel, but he watches as this goal slips further and further away. The symbolism is obvious. Furthermore, he's the son of an ex-hippie, and the grandson of a wealthy couple who live in an RV and travel the American roads.
So here's this kid: traditionally ambitious, but unable to ever really move forward. He's sold to living within the framework of the American Dream, but is insightful enough to almost understand that it's a hollow goal for people of his time. And the most resonant part of the book for me--the part that is perfectly pitched and perhaps a little contrived and the moment of clarity which puts all of Tyler's longings and disappointments into perspective, the scene which I find oddly missing from other reviews I've read of the book--is this: after many personal and professional missteps, Tyler finally has the chance to take his girlfriend on the road trip he's been dreaming of for years. They drive and drive, revisit the commune of Tyler's very early childhood, and head for a forest he remembers visiting when he was younger, this place which rests in Tyler's childhood memory like some Sylvan Eden. When they arrive, there is nothing left but a clear cut ruin.
Maybe it's because I live in the land of clear cutting. Maybe it's because I'm fascinated by the debate over whether the American Dream is still attainable, or even still exists. Maybe it's because I've taken a summer job as a retail cashier in a business where three out of every four people I meet has a graduate degree, and I'm pretty certain no one makes a real living wage. But whatever the reason, that devastating image stays with me, and I fully understand why Tyler fell apart on the roadside upon seeing that wide swath of ragged stumps.
I would have a lot more to say on the subject, but it's time to go get ready for work.
Coupland, the disaffected young writer who was supposed to be a voice for my generation. Or, well, for people slightly older than me. Or maybe I came in on the edge of Generation X (which will be another topic for another time). Coupland, who introduced the ironic age we live in now, or so the media would have us believe...Oh, wait. No. THOSE people, the ones who drip irony from their too-tight jeans as they walk down the street, are actually younger than me. They're even younger than Generation Y, the group of people represented in this novel, folks who want it all and get nothing.
I belong in no one group. This is, naturally, why there's something in Coupland's work which resonates with me.
I know, I know: everyone should start with Generation X. I didn't. I started here, and I actually like this novel better (even though Wikipedia says Coupland himself finds it contrived). In a rather strange way, it's mostly forgettable--but it's forgettable without exactly being forgettable, if you know what I mean. Of course you do. And you don't.
The book is populated with what I gather are the typical Coupland young adults--those who are working jobs well below their abilities and possibly their training; who are too introspective and smart and insightful for their own good; who used to have dreams and goals that were socially acceptable, but who have dropped these as unattainable empty promises and embraced smaller, more symbolic achievements. These are American children who are left to find a new way to rebel after their parents fought the culture wars of the 60s and 70s--the culture wars no one is quite sure who won. And, of course, Coupland wrote these characters in the wake of the plasticine 1980s, which means there is the lingering obsession with that old American Dream of wealth and status even as the realization dawns that such an obsession is mostly based on lies.
This sounds a little bleak, and it is. But it's a soft and possibly uniquely American kind of bleak, where repression is still lit with privilege and a small bit of whimsy. A lot has been made of how Coupland's youths are aimless, but I think in this novel in articular the main character is actually searching for quite a lot. The sensation of being lost comes naturally when a person must name for themselves what it is they're ultimately looking for, beyond any cultural mythos which has been handed down to them, beyond the goals other adults set for them early in their lives. The main character here, Tyler, has dreams of working for the defense corporation Bechtel, but he watches as this goal slips further and further away. The symbolism is obvious. Furthermore, he's the son of an ex-hippie, and the grandson of a wealthy couple who live in an RV and travel the American roads.
So here's this kid: traditionally ambitious, but unable to ever really move forward. He's sold to living within the framework of the American Dream, but is insightful enough to almost understand that it's a hollow goal for people of his time. And the most resonant part of the book for me--the part that is perfectly pitched and perhaps a little contrived and the moment of clarity which puts all of Tyler's longings and disappointments into perspective, the scene which I find oddly missing from other reviews I've read of the book--is this: after many personal and professional missteps, Tyler finally has the chance to take his girlfriend on the road trip he's been dreaming of for years. They drive and drive, revisit the commune of Tyler's very early childhood, and head for a forest he remembers visiting when he was younger, this place which rests in Tyler's childhood memory like some Sylvan Eden. When they arrive, there is nothing left but a clear cut ruin.
Maybe it's because I live in the land of clear cutting. Maybe it's because I'm fascinated by the debate over whether the American Dream is still attainable, or even still exists. Maybe it's because I've taken a summer job as a retail cashier in a business where three out of every four people I meet has a graduate degree, and I'm pretty certain no one makes a real living wage. But whatever the reason, that devastating image stays with me, and I fully understand why Tyler fell apart on the roadside upon seeing that wide swath of ragged stumps.
I would have a lot more to say on the subject, but it's time to go get ready for work.
August 12, 2010
I found it very difficult to relate to the protagonist of this, Coupland's second novel. He leaves his dying town in the desert region of Washington State for a summer of rail travel round Europe and cheats on his girlfriend. He returns to Terminaldeclineville (I fail to remember the name Coupland actually uses) and pretends nothing happened. He bemoans the lack of ambition of just about everybody but drops out of college.
When Coupland talks about the USA I recognise the place. In this book he describes a Europe I've never been to, despite living in Brussels.
Coupland writes in the first person most of the time but his unique imagery, ubiquitous in his novels, makes this character seem like a clone of one of his other characters that suffered a lot of gene damage and didn't come out as a Asperger's Syndrome experiencing computer geek border-line genius - instead as a hotel manager wannabe!
So the protagonist is dull, dim, immoral and drifting through life - then the French Girl arrives. She's so unpleasant even our protagonist doesn't deserve her, but she takes charge of his life, until an unbelievable ending resolves matters. (Think fairy God-mother.)
For me this book was a complete failure, which was unexpected - I've read five other Coupland novels and always got something worthwhile out of them.
When Coupland talks about the USA I recognise the place. In this book he describes a Europe I've never been to, despite living in Brussels.
Coupland writes in the first person most of the time but his unique imagery, ubiquitous in his novels, makes this character seem like a clone of one of his other characters that suffered a lot of gene damage and didn't come out as a Asperger's Syndrome experiencing computer geek border-line genius - instead as a hotel manager wannabe!
So the protagonist is dull, dim, immoral and drifting through life - then the French Girl arrives. She's so unpleasant even our protagonist doesn't deserve her, but she takes charge of his life, until an unbelievable ending resolves matters. (Think fairy God-mother.)
For me this book was a complete failure, which was unexpected - I've read five other Coupland novels and always got something worthwhile out of them.
August 28, 2022
The worst self-consciously Gen-X drivel. Perhaps the emphasis on consumerism is supposed to be post modern or ironic or something, but this book just comes off as hollow and without any redeeming qualities. There are no complex, believable, or likeable characters. The end of the book is especially off-putting, as the protagonist has learned absolutely nothing and only now values his girlfriend after she's lost weight and turned herself into a shiny consumer object.
December 31, 2023
A delightful little cultural and social snapshot of the 90s, more quaint than Coupland’s other books that I’ve read but enjoyable nonetheless
November 19, 2017
This book drove me crazy. The characters were unsympathetic and generally shallow; this may have been the point but it didn't help w/ the book's readability. The metaphors were also painful. For example, "I thought I was going to be permanently warped by loneliness, like a record being scraped by a screwdriver" or "the aura of strained, un-discussable pseudo-cheer near my grandparents, like partying in a house in which the mother has recently died" or "Jasmine's caught KittyWhip fever--like a plague sweeping a medieval walled town--you never know who'll be the next to go." Warping does not equal scraping. And wait...why would you party in a house where someone had died? And fever doesn't equal plague; and plagues are not often random in its scope. Grrrr. It was saved from one star by the fact that Coupland has a larger message (that he unsuccessfully communicated due to distractions like the above) and by the world's best letter from a mom to a young man.
The book is set in a not-uncommon landscape: Lancaster's biggest corporation has failed/closed unexpectedly, and those who worked there are out of jobs. The rest of the town folk who relied on those employees spending money shopping, etc, are now also struggling. The corporation made secret and dangerous items for the feds; they had poor waste disposal practices, and the town now has the fun task of dealing w/ dangerous buried remnants. So, without high paying scientific jobs available to the youth, what does the future look like? What makes people happy? What are the common goals of the society? Our protagonist Tyler is a bright kid. After his mom escaped from a hippie commune, he was raised in a positive environment lacking male role models (see opening sentence). He is ambitious - he wants to follow all the rules of the American dream in order to lead a comfortable, consumer lifestyle with good hair. Looks are important to Tyler and having nice things is important to Tyler but he is still a good person. Ironically he judges most harshly those he is most trying to become - Dan and his grandfather. This is a coming-of-age story where the protagonist is a little older than the normal teenager; maybe this is another difference in our modern world of privilege. Tyler is never hungry or unsafe or challenged by diversity. He has solidly first world problems.
The metaphor of hair is clever; in "Shampoo Planet" hair matters. Hair is a statement of intent and personality, almost like a calling card. It might be one of the few things folks have complete control over: the choices made to one's hair are a life choice - dreadlocks vs pixie cut vs full body waves - as Tyler states, one could become famous at any time; at that point one's history would become public knowledge and one's hair is an integral part of that. The subtext is also masculinity; Dan associates Tyler's hair w/ a shallow character - the traditional (and dying?) masculine's commentary on the new youth culture?
The book is set in a not-uncommon landscape: Lancaster's biggest corporation has failed/closed unexpectedly, and those who worked there are out of jobs. The rest of the town folk who relied on those employees spending money shopping, etc, are now also struggling. The corporation made secret and dangerous items for the feds; they had poor waste disposal practices, and the town now has the fun task of dealing w/ dangerous buried remnants. So, without high paying scientific jobs available to the youth, what does the future look like? What makes people happy? What are the common goals of the society? Our protagonist Tyler is a bright kid. After his mom escaped from a hippie commune, he was raised in a positive environment lacking male role models (see opening sentence). He is ambitious - he wants to follow all the rules of the American dream in order to lead a comfortable, consumer lifestyle with good hair. Looks are important to Tyler and having nice things is important to Tyler but he is still a good person. Ironically he judges most harshly those he is most trying to become - Dan and his grandfather. This is a coming-of-age story where the protagonist is a little older than the normal teenager; maybe this is another difference in our modern world of privilege. Tyler is never hungry or unsafe or challenged by diversity. He has solidly first world problems.
The metaphor of hair is clever; in "Shampoo Planet" hair matters. Hair is a statement of intent and personality, almost like a calling card. It might be one of the few things folks have complete control over: the choices made to one's hair are a life choice - dreadlocks vs pixie cut vs full body waves - as Tyler states, one could become famous at any time; at that point one's history would become public knowledge and one's hair is an integral part of that. The subtext is also masculinity; Dan associates Tyler's hair w/ a shallow character - the traditional (and dying?) masculine's commentary on the new youth culture?
August 2, 2023
Ever since I was a teenager, I counted Douglas Coupland as my favourite author. Somehow, he always managed to tap into some of the deep existential feelings that I had but could never find words for - and do so both casually and seemingly effortlessly.
I first read Shampoo Planet when I was about 17, so roughly half of my life ago. I held a particular fondness for it, even though I knew it wasn't my favourite of his works, and I couldn't tell you a single thing about the plot.
I decided to re-read it recently, picking this one out of all the possibilities purely on the strength of my memories of the distinctive cover. I was a bit concerned that it would be a let down all these years on, throwing me into some fresh identity crisis - and to be honest - for the first part of the book I wasn't particularly inspired. What was actually happening? What was the point? Where was this going?
Ultimately, the answer was... nowhere. Much like most of Coupland's books, you can get through the whole thing before you realise that there isn't much of a 'story'. Instead, you kind of dip into somebody else's world for a while - and more often than not, end up feeling something of their existence. The plot and characters end up providing a vehicle for stimulating something deeper, without you even being aware of it at the time.
Shampoo Planet definitely isn't my favourite Coupland book. It didn't and still doesn't blow my mind. However, it has plenty of those naturally profound moments that made me pause and go 'huh', which were why I always enjoyed his work in the first place. This is a book about loneliness, the loss of youth, and bleak ambition. I inhaled it in two short sittings.
I first read Shampoo Planet when I was about 17, so roughly half of my life ago. I held a particular fondness for it, even though I knew it wasn't my favourite of his works, and I couldn't tell you a single thing about the plot.
I decided to re-read it recently, picking this one out of all the possibilities purely on the strength of my memories of the distinctive cover. I was a bit concerned that it would be a let down all these years on, throwing me into some fresh identity crisis - and to be honest - for the first part of the book I wasn't particularly inspired. What was actually happening? What was the point? Where was this going?
Ultimately, the answer was... nowhere. Much like most of Coupland's books, you can get through the whole thing before you realise that there isn't much of a 'story'. Instead, you kind of dip into somebody else's world for a while - and more often than not, end up feeling something of their existence. The plot and characters end up providing a vehicle for stimulating something deeper, without you even being aware of it at the time.
Shampoo Planet definitely isn't my favourite Coupland book. It didn't and still doesn't blow my mind. However, it has plenty of those naturally profound moments that made me pause and go 'huh', which were why I always enjoyed his work in the first place. This is a book about loneliness, the loss of youth, and bleak ambition. I inhaled it in two short sittings.
December 13, 2011
This book was forced on me back in my grade eleven English class. I remain bitter about having had to suffer through it to this day. Tyler is a completely unsympathetic protagonist, and his treatment of Anna-Louise makes it even more alarming that she even considers him worthy of her time. Her complete transformation from a free spirited hippie type to what she perceives as Tyler's ideal woman (thin and spandex wearing, apparently) simply to please Tyler infuriated me. Anna-Louise was my favourite character, but Coupland felt the need to diminish her independence and make her completely give up her unique personality for the sake of the man in her life. This alone would have made me drop the book down a star, but since I was already hating the reading experience, this just solidified the one-star ranking in my mind.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 10, 2012
One of my favorites, I don't want to tell you what it's about. It's Built to Spill good, Paris, Texas good
February 7, 2021
On the whole this just didn't do much for me. I appreciated the book more as the plot began to develop and thought there were some interesting aphorisms here and there, but the overall style of writing came across as off-putting. I read this hoping I would get something close to an interesting critique of consumerism or the evolution of our relationship with corporations, a richer appreciation for American culture or a new perspective, or at least some connection or affinity with the protagonist's post-university coming of age story but thought the book came up short on all three.
October 24, 2024
good book, i'm just not sophisticated enough nor do I care for the narrators life.
The narrator in question, ( who strictly speaks in Panic! at the disco lyrics and similes.) is generally awful, which I can appreciate. Kinda an overwhelming amount of 'manic' women through out, which bugged me since I wish they had more substance. Maybe in the future when I'm more pretentious and lonely and smarter I'll understand the book better...
Overall the entire thing read like a Ryan Ross live journal entry (obviously) and a loner male fantasy.
The narrator in question, ( who strictly speaks in Panic! at the disco lyrics and similes.) is generally awful, which I can appreciate. Kinda an overwhelming amount of 'manic' women through out, which bugged me since I wish they had more substance. Maybe in the future when I'm more pretentious and lonely and smarter I'll understand the book better...
Overall the entire thing read like a Ryan Ross live journal entry (obviously) and a loner male fantasy.
August 31, 2018
4.75/5
February 23, 2021
It took me a little while to get into this book but having finished it I am impressed. I think it is better than his debut novel whose title caught the zeitgeist and labelled a culture: Generation X.
Tyler, the son of hippy mother Jasmine, wants to become an entrepreneur (his first memories are of Ronald Reagan). But he is growing up in Lancaster, an American town whose raison d'etre has been its nuclear processing plant, now closed. He studies hotel management at the local community college; his friends have dead-end jobs. His rich grandparents become homeless after their investment fund goes bankrupt; they start pyramid-selling a cat-food scheme. Nutrition involves the by-products of the oil industry or the processing of the unwanted and unmentionable bits of animals. This is a critique of American consumer culture by a narrator-protagonist who wants to be a part of it.
What helps is that the narrator is himself conflicted. He scorns the "sand candles" and "rainbow merchandise" of his Mum's hippy past. A visit to his natural father, living with two women and ten children in the wilds, has elements of nightmare. When visiting Europe he castigates Europeans for having no ambition. But when he goes to Hollywood he ends up working in a chicken reprocessing plant and then becomes a sidewalk artist. He is seduced by the future but all the time he lives among the wreckage of consumer culture. His descriptions of an American town past its best-before date reminded me of the town in The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold.
On the other hand, the way in which the narrator describes his world using detailed lists of consumer items reminded me of American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. And another bit made me think of William Burroughs (the author of eg Naked Lunch). So Coupland is in some good company.
He can certainly turn a phrase, frequently adding modern concepts to describe something in an original way:
"an auto-mall rezoning both deleted and reformatted the landscape." (Ch 7)
"Monkey-suit cocktail parties with the fashion-android wives." (Ch 9)
"Monique and her libertarian sexual mores, while not exactly sluttish, have a kind of unclean tinge, like a pack of white sugar that has burst, and is overflowing onto a supermarket aisle." (Ch 36)
"Parisians visibly wincing with anticipation for their August holidays, like a man who has to pee badly." (Ch 22)
"unplugged computers dreaming of pie charts." (Ch 61)
I loved this book for the way the author set up the hippy vs consumer culture clash, enabling him to critique them both. His hero is a true Colin Wilson Outsider, being both seduced and alienated by a world that holds out so much false promise while delivering such a squalid reality.
He writes well too!
Tyler, the son of hippy mother Jasmine, wants to become an entrepreneur (his first memories are of Ronald Reagan). But he is growing up in Lancaster, an American town whose raison d'etre has been its nuclear processing plant, now closed. He studies hotel management at the local community college; his friends have dead-end jobs. His rich grandparents become homeless after their investment fund goes bankrupt; they start pyramid-selling a cat-food scheme. Nutrition involves the by-products of the oil industry or the processing of the unwanted and unmentionable bits of animals. This is a critique of American consumer culture by a narrator-protagonist who wants to be a part of it.
What helps is that the narrator is himself conflicted. He scorns the "sand candles" and "rainbow merchandise" of his Mum's hippy past. A visit to his natural father, living with two women and ten children in the wilds, has elements of nightmare. When visiting Europe he castigates Europeans for having no ambition. But when he goes to Hollywood he ends up working in a chicken reprocessing plant and then becomes a sidewalk artist. He is seduced by the future but all the time he lives among the wreckage of consumer culture. His descriptions of an American town past its best-before date reminded me of the town in The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold.
On the other hand, the way in which the narrator describes his world using detailed lists of consumer items reminded me of American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. And another bit made me think of William Burroughs (the author of eg Naked Lunch). So Coupland is in some good company.
He can certainly turn a phrase, frequently adding modern concepts to describe something in an original way:
"an auto-mall rezoning both deleted and reformatted the landscape." (Ch 7)
"Monkey-suit cocktail parties with the fashion-android wives." (Ch 9)
"Monique and her libertarian sexual mores, while not exactly sluttish, have a kind of unclean tinge, like a pack of white sugar that has burst, and is overflowing onto a supermarket aisle." (Ch 36)
"Parisians visibly wincing with anticipation for their August holidays, like a man who has to pee badly." (Ch 22)
"unplugged computers dreaming of pie charts." (Ch 61)
I loved this book for the way the author set up the hippy vs consumer culture clash, enabling him to critique them both. His hero is a true Colin Wilson Outsider, being both seduced and alienated by a world that holds out so much false promise while delivering such a squalid reality.
He writes well too!
December 7, 2018
Starts like ketchup out of a glass bottle, but it's pretty good stuff and almost adorably quaint. As you continue to read you find parts you hate, parts you love, and parts that transport you. None of the characters are in themselves that interesting, nor many of the situations, but taken all-in-all and mixed together there's certainly something going on. Fever dream consumerism and alternative lifestyles, the two obsessions of the era, figure heavily in the bildungsromanesque plot.
If you were aware and alive in the 90s this book will take you back. The protagonist is a bastard through and through who kind of redeems himself, but only after a huge FrenchBabe® adventure. The resulting self-immolation of this ex-girlfriend from GeniuneWoman® into 90sFitnessHardbody® is written in quickly like an astoundingly incisive afterthought. There's glimmers like that throughout the book and some groan-worthy, über-savvy, multisyllabic hipness—this book came out just shortly before the rise of grunge. You can almost see the fluorescent teal windbreakers again. There's a real sense of nostalgia, and not just for the Gen-X-kid audience (I was attending kindergarten when this book was released).
Real DougCoupFic®, I guess, though it's the first of his books I've ever read since they were fully out of fashion when I was studying literature and from an era I rarely choose from. If anything this was reminiscent of that much-beloved Brett Easton Ellis classic everyone hates now, but far milder, the satire cut out (?), and without the transgression.
If you were aware and alive in the 90s this book will take you back. The protagonist is a bastard through and through who kind of redeems himself, but only after a huge FrenchBabe® adventure. The resulting self-immolation of this ex-girlfriend from GeniuneWoman® into 90sFitnessHardbody® is written in quickly like an astoundingly incisive afterthought. There's glimmers like that throughout the book and some groan-worthy, über-savvy, multisyllabic hipness—this book came out just shortly before the rise of grunge. You can almost see the fluorescent teal windbreakers again. There's a real sense of nostalgia, and not just for the Gen-X-kid audience (I was attending kindergarten when this book was released).
Real DougCoupFic®, I guess, though it's the first of his books I've ever read since they were fully out of fashion when I was studying literature and from an era I rarely choose from. If anything this was reminiscent of that much-beloved Brett Easton Ellis classic everyone hates now, but far milder, the satire cut out (?), and without the transgression.
June 15, 2012
Generally you will be hard pressed to get a bad review of Douglas Coupland out of me. I like his later work better than his earlier but this is certainly a grand exception to the rule. Coupland's characters always have this keen insight into the future of the world, which says a lot about his ability as a writer. I can't help but feel that if I was a young adult in the time that he wrote this book that my conversations would sound a lot like the conversations he writes into his book, perhaps even snippets of narration would overshadow my personal thoughts about life and what things make it worthwhile. What really gets to me on a deeper level about his style of writing is the pervasive pessimism that permeates through the first three quarters of the novels. At some point though the characters always manage to make some sort of breakthrough, to gain an important insight that causes them to find happiness. This is not exactly how all lives work out, but its the way a person would really like life to work out. I feel as if the endings are both fantastic and plausible, Coupland is the equivalent to a motivational speaker to me. Read this book, I know I am probably going to re-read it within a year or two.
March 23, 2017
"Для меня познакомиться с Анной-Луизой было все равно как поднять в магазине с пола оброненный кем-то сп��сок продуктов и вдруг осознать, что есть, оказывается, другие, куда более завлекательные диеты, чем та, которой ты придерживаешься. Впервые в жизни я почувствовал, что мне самого себя недостаточно.
Как-то раз в конце весны я тайком пошел за Анной-Луизой, когда она прогуливалась по центру, пытаясь увидеть ее как бы глазами постороннего прохожего - юные ноги, такие нежные под короткой, в складку, юбочкой, да и погода выдалась что надо, - как вдруг, шагая под безоблачным синим небом, она вытянула вперед руку, словно на нее только что упала капля дождя. Представляете?
А вот что представляю я: я сажаю в землю аккуратно срезанные волоски Анны-Луизы, как какие-нибудь тоненькие стебельки высушенных цветов, и наблюдаю как из них вырастают подсолнухи. Или: я зарываю в землю карманный калькулятор, набрав на жидкокристаллическом экране ее имя, а потом смотрю, как из земли бьют стрелы молний. "А слабо нам с тобой открыть ресторанчик "с морепродуктами?" - говорит Анна-Луиза, когда ей охота меня помучить. И это любовь. "
Как-то раз в конце весны я тайком пошел за Анной-Луизой, когда она прогуливалась по центру, пытаясь увидеть ее как бы глазами постороннего прохожего - юные ноги, такие нежные под короткой, в складку, юбочкой, да и погода выдалась что надо, - как вдруг, шагая под безоблачным синим небом, она вытянула вперед руку, словно на нее только что упала капля дождя. Представляете?
А вот что представляю я: я сажаю в землю аккуратно срезанные волоски Анны-Луизы, как какие-нибудь тоненькие стебельки высушенных цветов, и наблюдаю как из них вырастают подсолнухи. Или: я зарываю в землю карманный калькулятор, набрав на жидкокристаллическом экране ее имя, а потом смотрю, как из земли бьют стрелы молний. "А слабо нам с тобой открыть ресторанчик "с морепродуктами?" - говорит Анна-Луиза, когда ей охота меня помучить. И это любовь. "
July 20, 2015
En Shampoo Planet, como en otros libros de Douglas Coupland, la trama pasa a segundo plano y el acento está puesto en los personajes; sus diálogos y sus comentarios sobre la sociedad pos moderna en la que se desenvuelven. El libro está narrado por Tyler Johnson, joven ambicioso regresando a su pueblo natal del Estado de Washington después de un viaje de verano por Europa y que ahora debe vivir una serie de cambios personales que marcarán su debut a la "edad adulta".
Coupland es un maestro del análisis de la sociedad pero sin una nota de desprecio o pesimismo, sus comentarios nos llegan a través de sus personajes, quienes utilizan metáforas y analogías utilizando las imágenes que tienen a su alcance; es decir, de la cultura pop y de una sociedad consumista donde las marcas y corporaciones se vuelven la familia extendida con la que convives a diario.
Aunque el libro ya no es nuevo (1992) y en el mundo de Tyler los smartphones y las redes sociales eran todavía un sueño futurista, el libro todavía conserva gran parte de su vigencia.
Coupland es un maestro del análisis de la sociedad pero sin una nota de desprecio o pesimismo, sus comentarios nos llegan a través de sus personajes, quienes utilizan metáforas y analogías utilizando las imágenes que tienen a su alcance; es decir, de la cultura pop y de una sociedad consumista donde las marcas y corporaciones se vuelven la familia extendida con la que convives a diario.
Aunque el libro ya no es nuevo (1992) y en el mundo de Tyler los smartphones y las redes sociales eran todavía un sueño futurista, el libro todavía conserva gran parte de su vigencia.
December 30, 2023
Re-read this 32 years after it was written and still loved it. It was so "of a time" it felt like a current, modern critique at the time. It had aged into the time capsule I'm sure Coupland intended it to be.
Reading it now is like finding a long-forgotten flavour of popsicle in the back of the freeze (to use the author's style on his own work). The flavour is an intense punch of something you loved, but your tasted have changed and it's just so saturated that you almost can't enjoy it because it is so much itself.
Reading this in my 40s, vs my late teens, knowing how the 90's, 00's and 10's all played out, learning how the internet changed everything... but Coupland is a futurist, so short of including a pandemic his vision was pretty accurate.
I stopped reading Doug's works after it just got too apocalyptic and we start to see hints of that in this book.
Reading this today is a trip to a theme park of my youth.
Reading it now is like finding a long-forgotten flavour of popsicle in the back of the freeze (to use the author's style on his own work). The flavour is an intense punch of something you loved, but your tasted have changed and it's just so saturated that you almost can't enjoy it because it is so much itself.
Reading this in my 40s, vs my late teens, knowing how the 90's, 00's and 10's all played out, learning how the internet changed everything... but Coupland is a futurist, so short of including a pandemic his vision was pretty accurate.
I stopped reading Doug's works after it just got too apocalyptic and we start to see hints of that in this book.
Reading this today is a trip to a theme park of my youth.
July 12, 2008
This Coupland book was like comfort food for me. Others have commented on his writing, and I have to agree that there are some excellent passages in the book--there were several chunks that I had to read aloud to my wife because I enjoyed them so much.
Really, though, I enjoyed the growth and interaction of characters most. I appreciate the way he blends the sort of hyper-consumerism of his characters with personality traits to make them likable hypocrites. Flawed, but not hated. You get the same detached lack of emotion you'd find in a Bret Easton Ellis book, but the added connections between characters, especially where he shows them caring for one another, adds reality. Coupland doesn't judge his characters, he doesn't make them evil. I am most impressed with his ability to make them human.
Really, though, I enjoyed the growth and interaction of characters most. I appreciate the way he blends the sort of hyper-consumerism of his characters with personality traits to make them likable hypocrites. Flawed, but not hated. You get the same detached lack of emotion you'd find in a Bret Easton Ellis book, but the added connections between characters, especially where he shows them caring for one another, adds reality. Coupland doesn't judge his characters, he doesn't make them evil. I am most impressed with his ability to make them human.
January 6, 2008
Coupland's second novel and the first I read by him, it still sticks in mind as probably the best book I've ever read.Its basically summed up as just another teen novel plotwise. Its everyday formalities, family, friends ,girlfriend(s), but looked at in Tyler Johnson's skewed perspective. It deals with the simple issues such as what haircare product to choose and more difficult ones such as trying to find an identity in the modern world. Like all of couplands work it explores the good and bad side of living in the modern consumerist world. And its shit funny. To me it captures, better than anything (Yes, Catcher in the Rye included) what it is to be a teen. A very easy read, light language, short, but still breathtaking. Give it a go, I can't see who couldn't get a kick out of it.
April 29, 2020
This book gets a big "meh" from me. It was like a cartoon: brash and two dimensional. I didn't connect with any of the characters, especially the protagonist who it seemed like we were meant to like a lot more than we were given reasons to. The book's commentary on the struggle to find meaning in a modern consumerist world was way too heavy handed for me - literally withdrawing dollar bills and writing aphorisms on them? The made-up trademark names constantly referred to were i guess meant to be funny/satire but shot me straight out of my suspension of disbelief every time.. as did a lot of other moments in this book. Would be better as a movie, I imagine. You could ignore the banality of the plot and the writing and just look at the pretty/shiny things.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2024
Major disappointment. I know it's supposed to be some kind of critique of consumer capitalism and the Zeitgeist of the MTV generation and early Millennials, but writing about shallowness is hardly an excuse for writing a shallow novel. This is just a collection of snappy observations, utterly boring characters and ironic comments supposed to be funny. I know that this kind of literature is not meant to provide complex psychological portraits, but I need to have the feeling that at least something is at stake, that there is something unnerving.
This is the first novel that I ever read from Coupland. Apparently, it's not usually considered one of his best books so I will give him another chance.
This is the first novel that I ever read from Coupland. Apparently, it's not usually considered one of his best books so I will give him another chance.
September 21, 2011
Mr Coupland,
My freshman year of college, I met this kind of crazy chick named Molly. Oddly enough, Molly changed my life because she fueled my obsessed with a silly band (which led me to meeting the majority of my closest friends and some of the most awesome people ever) and she introduced me to you.
She and I were hanging out at a book store before a concert one night, and she suggested I read Shampoo Planet. And I did.
This book is perfect when your life is in transition. And you feel kind of lost. Like I did then.
Your words made me feel not so alone.
Thank you. A fan forever (despite whatever bizarre lit you put out).
N.
My freshman year of college, I met this kind of crazy chick named Molly. Oddly enough, Molly changed my life because she fueled my obsessed with a silly band (which led me to meeting the majority of my closest friends and some of the most awesome people ever) and she introduced me to you.
She and I were hanging out at a book store before a concert one night, and she suggested I read Shampoo Planet. And I did.
This book is perfect when your life is in transition. And you feel kind of lost. Like I did then.
Your words made me feel not so alone.
Thank you. A fan forever (despite whatever bizarre lit you put out).
N.
December 30, 2010
I don’t know why I bother really because every time I read a Coupland, I’m reminded of why I haven’t read one in a very very long time. Shampoo Planet was no different an experience. Yes, we’re all living in a soulless consumer culture; yes, we’re all shallow and self-serving; yes, we’re all lacking in self-awareness and empathy for others; yes, we’re all decadent and grotesque, etc. etc. etc.
Douglas, we’ve heard it all before. Every single book you write tells us the same thing, and you still haven’t got me caring.
I should have given up after Generation X.
Douglas, we’ve heard it all before. Every single book you write tells us the same thing, and you still haven’t got me caring.
I should have given up after Generation X.
January 15, 2025
I recently became interested in Douglas Copeland and his GenX themed works as over the past year I’ve been reading several novels set in the era, most are newer novels but in some cases I am revisiting books I read back then and occaisonally I discover books from the era that I missed. This book and the author I somehow completely missed, possibly because I was in college at the time and busy reading classics and such. Yet in the late 90s, post college when I went back to more broad fiction reading I still missed seeing this and later Copeland books in the bookstores where I spent so much time looking for this exact type of thing. Similarly strange that no one ever recommended Copeland nor were there any book reviews on his works that I noticed. Better late than never.
As with his debut novel Generation X which I read just prior to this, I found it interesting how the GenX protaganist Tyler sounds so much like the stereotype of young people today. Frustration with lack of affordable housing, stress over paying tuition, the anger of society at corporations, annoyance with his grandparents and their perceived wealth and refusal to share that with he and his generation (he’s angry at his “Greatest Generation” grandparents individually for their wealth and blames them for all of society’s ills, like destroying the planet, yet has no anger at his boomer parents who have squandered everything they were given and who provided him nothing in return; much like todays young people are so angry at boomers yet are silent about their GenX parents), comentary on the urban decay as industries collapse leading to lack of good jobs, credit card companies preying on youth, etc… things really never change, one wonders if we’ve made any progress as a society. When this was originally released and I read other books like this I probably felt the same at the time, the Greatest Generation weren’t thought of as that as much, they were just the haves, the old fashioned out of touch types whose time had passed but they wouldn’t let go or get out of our way, they kept clinging to power. The Bushes and Doles who wouldn’t make way for the Clintons, and in a way, us. I have to cringe a little looking back but I guess that’s how it always is.
The story is enjoyable but its of the “stuff that happens” type when it comes to the plot. That doesn’t mean there is nothing to it, there is character arc (eventually) and the story is entertaining. There is a theme; its Copeland’s specialty apparently, a GenX outlook on life up to and including the present moment (the book was published in 1992). But the story isn’t of the type where the protaganist is facing a crisis or something big he/she needs to overcome. We simply follow Tyler, the narrator, who is a perfect GenX representative whom we see through a period of his life at twenty. The angst and introspection are there but he mostly keeps it to himself, just sharing it with us. With other characters Tyler is fairly practical and straightforward showing only a little of all that. This somehow makes him much more likable than most characters who are by design representative of GenX because while we get to see and hear his wit and sarcastic observations, that he doesn’t inflict this diatribe on other characters, for the most part, saved him from becoming insufferable pretentious creep as can happen in these types of novels. Pretty cool trick by the author.
The rest of the characters are well done and interesting, even though they mostly felt like charicatures by virtue of our not being able too see past their cliche descriptions as we don’t get their inner thoughts as with Tyler. In Part 3 some of the characters suprisingly got more depth, bringing some actual arc to them and to Tyler’s journey. This was unexpected. The settings are also very well done and enjoyable, from his hometown of Lancaster, WA, a fictional Eastern WA town in the desert/plains, to the other places Tyler visits, espcially LA. The author does a great job and visually sets those scenes early.
In particular I enjoyed the authentic early nineties timeline. I mention this because I have read several newer novels published recently but set in the 80s and 90s and they have a different feel. Some its noticable because they seem to be missing topics or even avoid words and phrases which would be offensive or problematic today; its hard to pin down but the new stuff just feels like the author is being so careful to include certain things (eg, pop culture references to “set” the story) or exclude others (non PC stuff that might get the book “cancelled” by the online rage mob) and it feels contrived. Here that is not an issue, Tyler fits in to the world and it feels real, whereas modern novels set in this era it just feels more campy, and they gloss over many of the issues of the day and instead focus on the cool things everyone remembers from the era, the big events. They name drop top 40 songs, films, or the more well known hot button issues of the day in an attempt at creating authenticity but otften fail. It too often feels surface level as if the authors didn’t actually live it and got all these details from research, or if they did actually live it they are so far removed from living it all they remember and include are the big picture points. Because this was written in its time, every llittle thing, every detail is of the era and the authenticity is there.
The prose, well, Copeland can write. Its not just that there is a lot of subtext or purple prose, and he’s not just telling a story. The characters are telling and showing us everything. His style and story is unique. And it all flows so easy, this was such a fast and easy read, even though I had a lot going on it was easy to pick it up and get right back into the story. No wasted words or lines, he is a talented writer.
This book stands the test of time. Its a fun and easy read, highly recomend.
As with his debut novel Generation X which I read just prior to this, I found it interesting how the GenX protaganist Tyler sounds so much like the stereotype of young people today. Frustration with lack of affordable housing, stress over paying tuition, the anger of society at corporations, annoyance with his grandparents and their perceived wealth and refusal to share that with he and his generation (he’s angry at his “Greatest Generation” grandparents individually for their wealth and blames them for all of society’s ills, like destroying the planet, yet has no anger at his boomer parents who have squandered everything they were given and who provided him nothing in return; much like todays young people are so angry at boomers yet are silent about their GenX parents), comentary on the urban decay as industries collapse leading to lack of good jobs, credit card companies preying on youth, etc… things really never change, one wonders if we’ve made any progress as a society. When this was originally released and I read other books like this I probably felt the same at the time, the Greatest Generation weren’t thought of as that as much, they were just the haves, the old fashioned out of touch types whose time had passed but they wouldn’t let go or get out of our way, they kept clinging to power. The Bushes and Doles who wouldn’t make way for the Clintons, and in a way, us. I have to cringe a little looking back but I guess that’s how it always is.
The story is enjoyable but its of the “stuff that happens” type when it comes to the plot. That doesn’t mean there is nothing to it, there is character arc (eventually) and the story is entertaining. There is a theme; its Copeland’s specialty apparently, a GenX outlook on life up to and including the present moment (the book was published in 1992). But the story isn’t of the type where the protaganist is facing a crisis or something big he/she needs to overcome. We simply follow Tyler, the narrator, who is a perfect GenX representative whom we see through a period of his life at twenty. The angst and introspection are there but he mostly keeps it to himself, just sharing it with us. With other characters Tyler is fairly practical and straightforward showing only a little of all that. This somehow makes him much more likable than most characters who are by design representative of GenX because while we get to see and hear his wit and sarcastic observations, that he doesn’t inflict this diatribe on other characters, for the most part, saved him from becoming insufferable pretentious creep as can happen in these types of novels. Pretty cool trick by the author.
The rest of the characters are well done and interesting, even though they mostly felt like charicatures by virtue of our not being able too see past their cliche descriptions as we don’t get their inner thoughts as with Tyler. In Part 3 some of the characters suprisingly got more depth, bringing some actual arc to them and to Tyler’s journey. This was unexpected. The settings are also very well done and enjoyable, from his hometown of Lancaster, WA, a fictional Eastern WA town in the desert/plains, to the other places Tyler visits, espcially LA. The author does a great job and visually sets those scenes early.
In particular I enjoyed the authentic early nineties timeline. I mention this because I have read several newer novels published recently but set in the 80s and 90s and they have a different feel. Some its noticable because they seem to be missing topics or even avoid words and phrases which would be offensive or problematic today; its hard to pin down but the new stuff just feels like the author is being so careful to include certain things (eg, pop culture references to “set” the story) or exclude others (non PC stuff that might get the book “cancelled” by the online rage mob) and it feels contrived. Here that is not an issue, Tyler fits in to the world and it feels real, whereas modern novels set in this era it just feels more campy, and they gloss over many of the issues of the day and instead focus on the cool things everyone remembers from the era, the big events. They name drop top 40 songs, films, or the more well known hot button issues of the day in an attempt at creating authenticity but otften fail. It too often feels surface level as if the authors didn’t actually live it and got all these details from research, or if they did actually live it they are so far removed from living it all they remember and include are the big picture points. Because this was written in its time, every llittle thing, every detail is of the era and the authenticity is there.
The prose, well, Copeland can write. Its not just that there is a lot of subtext or purple prose, and he’s not just telling a story. The characters are telling and showing us everything. His style and story is unique. And it all flows so easy, this was such a fast and easy read, even though I had a lot going on it was easy to pick it up and get right back into the story. No wasted words or lines, he is a talented writer.
This book stands the test of time. Its a fun and easy read, highly recomend.
August 8, 2014
I'm not really sure what the point of this book is. Not that every book has to have a point but after finishing it I'm left wondering what actually happened and was there any point in writing it? I'm sure there are people out there who identify with the over stereotyped and yet bland characters, perhaps I'm reading this in the wrong era but it did nothing for me.
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