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Read Miss Wyoming (2001)

Miss Wyoming (2001)

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Genre
Rating
3.46 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0375707239 (ISBN13: 9780375707230)
Language
English
Publisher
vintage

Miss Wyoming (2001) - Plot & Excerpts

"Miss Wyoming" is a light and fun read, but it still manages to touch on a few serious themes: loneliness and love, detachment and connectedness, identity and rebirth. In the first part of the book, the narrator jumps back and forth in time describing a myriad of crazy characters in unbelievable situations. At first, I didn't really get drawn into the book as I like to when reading a book like this one. Instead, I simply read one chapter at a time and then put the book down. And then when I picked up the book again, it was difficult to figure out what was going on. I didn't really care about the characters and I wasn't that interested in the plot. However, near the end of the book, the myriad of characters and plots converge into a unified, compelling, uplifting (and even a bit inspirational) story. I absolutely love the end of the book!The main theme of the book (or at least the one that spoke to me the most) is the idea of rebirth ala the phoenix (destroying or erasing one's current identity in some way and creating a new one by rising from the ashes). Most of the main characters (Susan--the beauty queen, John--the producer who falls in love with Susan, Eugene--former weatherman/pageant judge and Susan's lover, Randy Hexum--Susan's fan who raises her child, Dreama--Susan's best friend) experience this cyclical rebirth. They live multiple lives and have multiple identities (sometimes even changing their names) throughout their lifetimes. It is important to note that the characters in Miss Wyoming choose to be reborn and to take on these new identities. They choose the paths that they take, and they choose the lives that they lead in a very active and self-directed way. I think the last paragraph is beautiful and says it best, "John felt that he and everybody in the New World was a part of a mixed curse and blessing from God, that they were a race of strangers, perpetually casting themselves into new fires, yearning to burn, yearning to rise from the charcoal, always newer, always believing that whatever came to them next would mercifully erase the creatures they'd already become as they crawled along the plastic radiant way."

Pop Culture Trash Coupland Rather than Indie Kid CouplandThose who know and love his more indie-kid classics such as Generation X or JPod may be a little disappointed as there's no interesting footnotes, slogans or other playing with the format here. This is a straight-up novel. A fun, post-modernly trashy one, more like Coupland's All Families Are Psychotic.I enjoyed this one a lot, but found it occasionally embarrassed my snob credentials as impossibility built upon improbability until there was almost something of a romance novel or fairy tale about it.That said - Coupland is one shrewd observer, so even when he's writing about a former child star who happens to be the only survivor of a plane crash - there's always something snide and witty going on under the surface.My personal favourite is the coining of the term 'white collar subversion' - as people take great time and calculation to disrupt and mess with their own offices. A bit of a recurring theme with Coupland, but a good one nonetheless.

What do You think about Miss Wyoming (2001)?

I hate, hate, hate, books that jump back and forth in time sequence amid multiple characters. I like a flow to my reading such that I don't have to go "wait a minute, who'se this guy, was this before this other thing happened" at the beginning of every chapter. Too much work to keep context of what happened in what order to who. Pain in the ass.I was literally half way thru the book before I metaphorically threw it across the room in disgust. The shame is that I really liked Coupland's writing intra-chapter, but he's being too damn cute to hopscotch from the middle to the beginning and back for no apparent reason or affect.
—Jpmist

I read a lot of Douglas Coupland when I was younger, including this book. Other than Generation X and All Families are Psychotic, I'd always had fond memories of this book. I read it when I was a teenager and I think the idea of escaping and not being under the control of anything or anyone really appealed to me, although by that point I had tried several times and knew it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I remember specifically laughing at John Johnson big plan to give up all his worldly possessions and wander the earth. I knew it was going to suck for him and it did, that is basically just being a homeless person. I could certainly sympathize, though. All the other characters were far more interesting than Johnson, though, particularly Susan Colgate. Once again, like in Eleanor Rigby, we're seeing a character that at one point breaks into someones home and kind of likes seeing how these people live and what their life is like, if for only a moment. I drew the parallel between the two books at that point because the idea had always appealed to me as well.I like the quirkiness of the book, the strange things that happen, and the mostly interesting characters. I thought it was interesting that the character Vanessa thinks that she is the next step in the evolution of humans because she is so smart. I also liked that these characters were seeking out more meaning in their lives than Hollywood money and fame could provide them, and in their own strange way they find it. This is a little more cohesive plot-wise than Generation X for example, but not as much as All Families Are Psychotic. I think I missed most of the main points of this book reading it as a teenager because I just took from it what applied to me and left the rest, I didn't even remember the second half of the book. And yet, I give it the same star rating...
—Joshua Gross

Miss Wyoming is not as apocalyptic as some of the other Coupland novels. Of course there is a clear Coupland message here: maybe you should take a step back from your little capitalist consumer life, take a good look and make some changes. But the final consequence of this message is absent (unlike the dead bees in Generation A for example, or the craziness at the end of Girlfriend in a Coma). I must say, this is refreshing and makes for a lighter read and better thoughts after reading. After an apocalyptic book one mostly thinks "This is too unrealistic to really happen. It's a nice thought but it doesn't really happen like that." Problem solved. After a book like this one you are more likely thinking through the ultimate consequences for yourself and reach your own conclusion. For me, this makes the message much stronger.
—Tjibbe Wubbels

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