Stupid Perfect World

Scott Westerfeld
3 Stars

In this future-set novella by bestselling author Scott Westerfeld, Kieran Black lives in a "perfect" world. Disease and starvation have been eradicated, sleep is unnecessary, and it takes no time at all to go from the Bahamas to the moon. But now Kieran has to take Scarcity, a class about how people lived in the bad old days. And as if sitting through an hour of Scarcity every day wasn't depressing enough, it's final projects time. Each student must choose some form of ancient hardship to experience for two whole weeks. Kieran chooses having to sleep eight hours a night, which doesn't seem too annoying. Maria Borsotti has never thought much of Kieran, but she decides to take pity on him and help him out with his project. Soon, Kieran is sleeping and having vivid dreams, while Maria, whose Scarcity project is to give up all teenage hormone regulation, is experiencing emotions she never knew she had. As their assignments draw them closer together, they begin to wonder if the olden days weren't so bad. Maybe something has been missing from their perfect lives after all?

 It was really short. I love Scott Westerfeld so I was hoping for new series since I have read all of his current ones. So that was a little disappointing but it had a great base start. I wish I could know more about how they were able to cure everything and how they are able to control hormones and how they get around the whole sleeping eight hours a day how nice that would be, I would have so much time with the whole sleep thing getting in the way. I mean they can teleport everywhere to the moon and mars and live in Antarctica. There has to be more to their story like how Keiran and Maria function after their projects are done and how they are able to change the world around them show others that there is more to life than their Stupid Perfect World.