Utopia Cosmopolitan

Theresa W.
Amira Press (2007)
ISBN 9781934475140
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (9/07)

Esther, a college student, was on a plane on her way to a relaxing vacation in the Caribbean Islands, when she gets sent through a time travel portal.  She ends up in the year 3000.  Being recognized by others who passed through the same way, she becomes part of an elite group of Advisors to the Prince.  The United States is now called Utopia Cosmopolitan or The U.C.  The U.C. is all the last country left on the planet.  It has been designed to allow people to live freely, abundantly and happily.  On the outskirts of The U.C. is an area known as “The Fringe.”  The Fringe is not so nice.  People are poorer and not at all happy.  They are composed of a group of people that refused to conform to the U.C. standards. 

As time passes, Esther finds that the extravagant life as an Advisor has little meaning to her.  She wants to be doing something to make a difference.  She feels drawn to helping the people in the Fringe.  She has a useless boyfriend who is also an Advisor.  He leads a life of excess.  As she is pulling away from him, she becomes closer to the Prince.  The Prince is a good man and wants what’s best for the people.

He allows Esther to start pursuing her goals.  As she begins working on helping the situation with the Fringe, she discovers that there is embezzlement happening.  A disrupting faction in the Fringe is taking money from the education of the children to help fund a war against the U.C.  Esther is now racing against the clock to try to prevent this.  The prince needs to help her with winning this one.

This is a fun short book to read.  The ideas contained in it are definitely complex enough that I think it would have made a really interesting full-size novel.  I enjoyed the idea of transporting through time to a very different reality.  You see that while circumstances can change, people in general stay the same.  Esther’s travels into the future really enriched her life.  She found an important cause and put her energy into knowing that she could actually make a difference.  “Utopia Cosmopolitan” is a story that can be enjoyed by both young adults and adults. 

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