First off, this was a great book! For teens and adults. (After all, there's a lot of us who are no longer teens, but don't mind or enjoy stuff like this because we know what we could be missing if we acted our age. ;P) I wasn't sure what to expect after the disappointment in the last teen series I read (Twilight) that was hyped, but this one surprised me. Perhaps because the angst in the teens was conditioned as opposed to a couple of overly sniveling ones who are mad at the world.

I think this book may have been written with the intentions of scaring us away from wanting a "perfect" society, but the advances in medicines and technology that are environmentally friendly are pretty amazing. So many of the things the Pretties have provided for them almost make you wishful that we had such peace and harmony as well. And, even though though certain individualisms are given up (which is narcissistically trivial anyway), the people as a whole seem to prosper and are happy in this "Brave New World". I guess a peaceful society, even if it is gained through a type of mind-control for the average pretty, is better off than the chaos, violence and unhappiness humans have created for themselves on a daily basis.

It also appears that the people in Smoke may feel free, but have managed to recreate many of the catalysts for problems we have today in pollutions and respect for other forms of life in their environment. They may seem to recycle everything left over from the previously felled civilizations, but eventually someone always wants to take shortcuts that impact the environment in a negative way. This actually happens when David wants to clear-cut brush to more easily reach scrap metal, but agrees not to after others are concerned about the waste that would be created.

Overall, this book has a lot of things controversial from both sides, and even though it's sci-fi for us, it still gives us a lot to think about.

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