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jon_chaissonNext up: DC's sophomore book, coming soon off the heels of his Big Debut. Quite similar in theme to Generation X, but from the POV of someone that could easily be the younger brother of Andy from GX.
Shampoo Planet, Douglas' second book can be seen as his running theme of the effects of consumer culture on the Gen-X generaation. This time out, though, instead of the mid-to-late 20s post-college set, we're looking at the late teens/early 20s college set. It centers around Tyler Johnson (probably no connection to Tyler, the brother of Andy in the previous book, though there are many similarities), just about out of community college and living in nowheresville in the sticks of Washington state. He's got a posse of strange friends with dead-end jobs and big plans for the future, if only they had the ways and means to get there. He's got a wonderful girlfriend (though it scares him to realize that she may just be The One). His mother is an ex-hippy, his birth father is a burnout somewhere in California and his stepdad is a real estate yuppie ass. He's got two younger sisters who seem to have a little more going on than him. And he wants, more than ever, to be the best damn hotel management-slash-architect EVAR, and he wants a cushy job at Bechtel.
So what could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters, the local "dead mall" seems to be dying a slow and painful death, making one less place for his posse to hang out at. His sister keeps using his hair products. He's not the best student in college and he's flunking a few classes. His mother, after receiving a cruel "I want a divorce" note from his stepdad, is having her dreaded midlife crisis. And his grandparents, once rich from a pyramid scheme, are now forced, along with the rest of his universe, to sell KittyWhip door to door to make ends meet. And now he's got his European fling, Stephanie, haunting him.
So when Stephanie comes to visit--much to everybody's chagrin--he decides to go with her on a long roadtrip to California, hoping it's the means of escape he's been looking for. They visit his birthplace, his birth father (and to his surprise, a multitude of probable stepsiblings), make a pilgrimage to Silicon Valley, and eventually hit the jaded glamor of Los Angeles. However, he soon finds out two things--going to "where the action's at" is not as exciting as he thought it would be, and worse, Stephanie was everything he ever expected--a spoiled princess who used him to start her own career in Hollywood.
Well.
Broke, annoyed and pissed off, there's only one last thing to do--head back home, tail between legs, and start over. Except there's one thing: quite some time ago, in a fit of caffeinated excitement and brainstorming, he wrote a letter to the CEO of Bechtel with one of the most cockeyed, weirded out hotel plans he'd ever come up with. And somehow, despite all his luck, they want to hire him as soon as possible.
But before he can take the job, there are just a few more things to do. He has to patch things up with his now-ex-girlfriend, get his mother's head straight, literally smack some sense into his stepdad, and make sure nothing else goes wrong.
---
THOUGHTS ON THE BOOK:
Shampoo Planet is, for the most part, a much more realized, more action-oriented version of Generation X. There's more of a concrete plot and less meandering, and Coupland's deliciously evil sense of irony is much more to the forefront. He tells the story knowing full well that not all is going to end well at all, in effect showing that Tyler knows what he's getting into, but he's going to do it anyway because he's desperate. However, Tyler--ever the optimist despite the frustration it entails--refuses to admit his desperation, and always manages to find a way out of his problems. He's the younger, more resourceful (and perhaps more naive) half of the generation, whereas the protagonists of Generation X needed to have the proverbial anvil dropped on their heads to get their asses in gear.
This second book felt a lot more focused, more driven than the previous one (and a lot less dire), and I found it to be a much more pleasing read. Cynicism definitely took a backseat for this one, whereas in Gen X it was in the front seat behind the steering wheel. In a way it made Shampoo Planet a much more exciting and smoother read. And of course, where Gen X had a lot of random stuff stuck in the margins, SP merely had a jokey list of cultural "necessities" set up like a Periodic Table of Elements at the beginning, which ties in with Tyler's learning what is actually necessary in life.
Next Up: Life After God
Shampoo Planet, Douglas' second book can be seen as his running theme of the effects of consumer culture on the Gen-X generaation. This time out, though, instead of the mid-to-late 20s post-college set, we're looking at the late teens/early 20s college set. It centers around Tyler Johnson (probably no connection to Tyler, the brother of Andy in the previous book, though there are many similarities), just about out of community college and living in nowheresville in the sticks of Washington state. He's got a posse of strange friends with dead-end jobs and big plans for the future, if only they had the ways and means to get there. He's got a wonderful girlfriend (though it scares him to realize that she may just be The One). His mother is an ex-hippy, his birth father is a burnout somewhere in California and his stepdad is a real estate yuppie ass. He's got two younger sisters who seem to have a little more going on than him. And he wants, more than ever, to be the best damn hotel management-slash-architect EVAR, and he wants a cushy job at Bechtel.
So what could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters, the local "dead mall" seems to be dying a slow and painful death, making one less place for his posse to hang out at. His sister keeps using his hair products. He's not the best student in college and he's flunking a few classes. His mother, after receiving a cruel "I want a divorce" note from his stepdad, is having her dreaded midlife crisis. And his grandparents, once rich from a pyramid scheme, are now forced, along with the rest of his universe, to sell KittyWhip door to door to make ends meet. And now he's got his European fling, Stephanie, haunting him.
So when Stephanie comes to visit--much to everybody's chagrin--he decides to go with her on a long roadtrip to California, hoping it's the means of escape he's been looking for. They visit his birthplace, his birth father (and to his surprise, a multitude of probable stepsiblings), make a pilgrimage to Silicon Valley, and eventually hit the jaded glamor of Los Angeles. However, he soon finds out two things--going to "where the action's at" is not as exciting as he thought it would be, and worse, Stephanie was everything he ever expected--a spoiled princess who used him to start her own career in Hollywood.
Well.
Broke, annoyed and pissed off, there's only one last thing to do--head back home, tail between legs, and start over. Except there's one thing: quite some time ago, in a fit of caffeinated excitement and brainstorming, he wrote a letter to the CEO of Bechtel with one of the most cockeyed, weirded out hotel plans he'd ever come up with. And somehow, despite all his luck, they want to hire him as soon as possible.
But before he can take the job, there are just a few more things to do. He has to patch things up with his now-ex-girlfriend, get his mother's head straight, literally smack some sense into his stepdad, and make sure nothing else goes wrong.
---
THOUGHTS ON THE BOOK:
Shampoo Planet is, for the most part, a much more realized, more action-oriented version of Generation X. There's more of a concrete plot and less meandering, and Coupland's deliciously evil sense of irony is much more to the forefront. He tells the story knowing full well that not all is going to end well at all, in effect showing that Tyler knows what he's getting into, but he's going to do it anyway because he's desperate. However, Tyler--ever the optimist despite the frustration it entails--refuses to admit his desperation, and always manages to find a way out of his problems. He's the younger, more resourceful (and perhaps more naive) half of the generation, whereas the protagonists of Generation X needed to have the proverbial anvil dropped on their heads to get their asses in gear.
This second book felt a lot more focused, more driven than the previous one (and a lot less dire), and I found it to be a much more pleasing read. Cynicism definitely took a backseat for this one, whereas in Gen X it was in the front seat behind the steering wheel. In a way it made Shampoo Planet a much more exciting and smoother read. And of course, where Gen X had a lot of random stuff stuck in the margins, SP merely had a jokey list of cultural "necessities" set up like a Periodic Table of Elements at the beginning, which ties in with Tyler's learning what is actually necessary in life.
Next Up: Life After God
