Uglies - Scott Westerfeld

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I love the concept and the world built by Scott Westerfeld!

SO, where do I begin?  What are Uglies?  They are normal people... what????  Yes normal people are considered uglies until they have an operation when they turn 16 that turns them all beautiful.  They are warded off to live with other uglies until the operation and then once the operation hits they move to New Pretty Town and party all the time.

Tally is the heroine whom the story revolves around and she is an ugly almost 16.  She befriends Shay who tells her of a place where you don't have to be beautiful, you can stay ugly.  Tally wants to have the operation and go see her old best friend Peris and party until sunrise.  She does NOT want to be ugly.  She and Shay pull pranks and become fast friends.  Shay tells her of the Smoke where the "rebel" people live.  These are just normal uglies who did not have the operation.  Tally can't imagine anything as awful as this so she lets Shay go on her own...

Too bad she didn't realize the consequences of letting Shay go to the Smoke and staying behind so she can become Pretty.  All I will say is that her punishment for not giving up Shay is an ugly one.

I wont give anything away, it's definitely a new spin on a typical Dystopian novel.  The world that Scott Westerfeld has built between the New Pretty Town, The Smoke, Ugly City, Special Circumstances, The Rusties, all of the inventions we use today and the new ones of the future is absolutely stunning.  I can imagine this in a film with beautiful cinematography.  There's a huge twist at the end which makes me desperate to see what happens in book 2 Pretties.  Definitely a well thought out book and concept with a great spin that will leave your imagination to go run wild!



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