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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.
