Miles to Go Before I Sleep (3/10)

by AdmiralFartmore

(book chosen by Peartree

The final stanza of Robert Frost’s iconic poem echoes through my head as I force myself through the final pages of Miley Cyrus’s piece-of-shit biography, Miles to Go. I’m in a quiet bus on a smooth road – maybe my favourite time and place to polish off a book – but it feels like I’ve lost my ability to read. I try to stay focused, but every minute or so my mind starts to wander and I daydream about the bus running off the road or crashing headlong into a an oncoming vehicle. This book is making me illiterate, one page at a time.

Miles to Go promises to provide an exposé into the motivations, aspirations and cute day-to-day life of Disney superstar, Miley Cyrus. Throughout the book, we are also promised snippets of wisdom that this sheltered, privileged 16 year old has picked up along the way during her hard-fought rise from wealth and celebrity-status to even more obscene wealth and celebrity-status. Luckily, these words of wisdom, such as “at the end of life, all you have is what you felt as you were going through life,” “there are multiple sides to all of us,” and “you’ll never find your dream if you don’t reach for it,” are all written in big, bold font so that we don’t miss them!!! I’d also like to take a moment to share one point that particularly resonated with me: “people will always have different opinions about things you create. Whether it is a love song, or a sad poem, or a book about your life so far, everyone sees it a little differently.” I, for example, think this book is complete shit.

Miles to Go documents two major periods of hardship in the life of Miley Cyrus – six months of bullying in sixth grade, and developing acne when she was 14. According to Cyrus, “to say sixth grade was not a good year would be the understatement of the decade.” Shockingly, as she was spending half her time at filming commercials and attending auditions in Los Angeles, Cyrus had a difficult time making friends at her prestigious private school in Nashville. Girls even called her dad a one-hit-wonder. Srsly. Luckily, this is redemption story; she landed the part of Hannah Montana midway through the school year and was whisked away from the trials and tribulations of normal high-class life.

The second major shock in Cyrus’s life, her acne, is written to provide a sort of analogy for her emotional development during superstardom. It took Miley 50 pages to tell the story, but I’ll try to explain it concisely here: Miley developed acne and was very embarrassed. During her struggle she met a terminally-ill fan names Vanessa who was very brave and positive despite having only months to live. The fan died and Miley realised that acne wasn’t so bad afterall. Reflecting on Vanessa’s death, Miley writes “I don’t know why this happens… all I know is I will have a new angel watching over me.” I think Vanessa was truly lucky, not only to meet Miley and teach her a lesson about acne, but also to spend the rest of eternity watching over our blessed pop star.

Miles to Go also employs a very innovative narrative structure, where the occasional page is dedicated to a hand-written list of “7 things” thematically similar to the chapter at hand. For example, 7 THINGS THAT MAKE ME SADincludes “my horses being in Nashville without me” at #3, “people who don’t know Jesus” at #4, and “world hunger” at #7. 7 THINGS THAT I WANT TO CHANGE ABOUT THE WORLD includes #2 “homeless people without the comfort of a snuggly bed and family to go home to,” #3 “mean online message boards” and “#7 bring peace.” Miles to Go also includes some of Miley’s favourite bible verses, song lyrics and poems. There are also 30 pages of family photos at the halfway mark, which was perhaps the best written section of the book.

In conclusion, Miles to Go grants us an interesting look at the mind of privileged narcissist as they cynically argue that they deserve everything that has been handed to them. Theres also a bunch of other shitty pandering about how Miley likes fast food and Guitar Hero and how at heart she’s just like the rest of us, but she is your average teenager only by virtue of her megalomania and shallow world-view. In her list of 7 THINGS I WISH WERE TRUE, Miley wishes “we can rewind time.” I have to agree, because after finishing this book I’m closer to death with nothing to show for it. If Miles to Go was a horse, it would be glue. But the sad reality is, it isn’t a horse at all. It’s just a really bad book.

Wager:

Which character will win in this Mario Kart match?

Results:

Peartree (using Peach); Beau Dashington (using Luigi); WildCard (using Daisy); AdmiralFartmore (using Mario).