Hipstopia by R.A. Desilets

Hipstopia was written by Google+'s +Rachel Desilets. In fact, I got to know about the book through Google+! Does this make me hipster? I'm not sure, since I don't even know what a hipster is.

But, even with my woeful lack of knowledge of contemporary culture and subculture, I found this short novel to be an entertaining read. It envisions a world where the hipsters have broken away from America to form.... Hipstopia. There, everyone is unique - which is to say that everyone smokes, drinks coffee and wears glasses. That would be me, except that I don't smoke or drink coffee. Darn, I wanted to ride on one of those scooters too!

Anyway, while Hipstopia seems like the perfect place, free of marketing from the Big Corporations (and with seven, count'em seven choices!), it's not. At least that's what Jay, the right hand man of the guy running Hipstopia is starting to find out. When he gets sent to quiet a disturbance, he meets prisoner number forty seven, a beautiful girl that grabs his attention immediately. Add that to a shock that he receives when he accidentally kills someone and Jay is disillusioned with the place.

Personally, I found Jay's escape from Hipstopia too easy. While this book is supposed the first in a series, the latter half felt rather free of conflict. Sure, there's a covert war going on between Hipstopia and the rest of America, but Jay seems to resolve his problems a bit too easily.

Overall though, this was an entertaining book. I'm not sure if I want to read more yet, but I suppose the blurb of book two (which I haven't seen yet) will convince me yes or no.