Uglies (Uglies Trilogy, Book 1) by Scott Westerfeld Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Uglies (Uglies Trilogy, Book 1)
Book Review: Great Sci Fi YA
Summary: 4 Stars
While I like fantasy, I really am not into sci-fi or futuristic kinds of books. I never would have even tried this book except it has been flying off the shelves at our school library. The story is about a futuristic society in which you are deemed ugly until 16 when you have a surgery to make you pretty. The main character, Tally, is coerced into spying on a group of rebels who live in a place called "The Smoke". She won't get to become pretty unless she agrees to do this. I was on the edge of my seat until the end of the book trying to figure out how Tally would get out of the mess she made. I was impressed by this story and would consider reading the rest of the series.Book Review: Uglies
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased several copies of this book for a Book Club with my 6th grade class - they absolutely LOVED it, and everyone of them is trying to get ahold of the next book in the series, The Pretties. This is a great science fiction book, especially for girls. So many Sci-fi books are written for boys, but this book focuses on the future as well as what's important to so many girls today - the way they look. I truly believe that you should be a different person after you read something, and Westerfield has done an excellent job of changing the way readers look at technology, vanity, and the future.Book Review: LOVED THIS BOOK!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is part of my favorite series, each book as good as the other but anyway about Uglies. I really wasn't into much sci-fi or futuristic kind of books, I mean I'd read a few and it was never really my favorite but this book is amazing. I'm not really good about summarizing stuff and I'm always afraid to give away too much but it's pretty much about this girl named Tally Youngblood who lives in the future. In the future you are considered "ugly" until your 16 when you get a surgery to make you "pretty" and they have two different towns for the uglies and the pretties. All Tally's friends have become pretty already except her, so one night she meets this girl Shay who does something that pretty much makes the whole story. Yeah sorry that wasn't very good (the summary) yeah but the book rocksBook Review: Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
Summary: 5 Stars
In today's modern society, everyone wants to be pretty. But in this book, becoming pretty comes with a price. In the book Uglies, Westerfeld's first book in his awesome trilogy, we discover a very possible future where everyone can possess stunning beauty when they turn sixteen. Everyone else is ugly. The story's main character is Tally, a girl who lives in the future and wants to be pretty more than anything. In order to be pretty, Tally has to betray her friend or forever stay ugly. Tally finds herself in this novel and what she what she really wants.
I personally loved this eye-opening novel. It has a plot that is well-constructed and keeps you hungry for more. Westerfeld satisfies this hunger, seeing as to he has a trilogy to Uglies. It also has a message that everyone can relate to: True beauty lies within. Uglies is a book that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys stories that open the mind and leave you thinking at the end. I would give this awesome book a rating of 5 stars.
Book Review: like Brave New World, only in shades of gray
Summary: 4 Stars
I liked UGLIES quite a bit. It's like Brave New World, a book about the hidden dark side of utopia, but written in shades of gray instead of Huxley's black and white. In Westerfield's world, social control and brainwashing leave citizens with enough independence that the benefits just might be worth the costs. Life is pretty good - everybody is provided with all the material goods they may need, surgically crafted physical beauty suited to their age and station, the freedom to indulge in youthful tricks and, later, adult pleasures.
Almost everybody is happy - and, tell the truth, who wouldn't willingly trade a few brain cells for a lifetime of happiness? I sure would. But the few people who prefer a hard life with their own looks and their own thoughts to brain-damaged, supermodel paradise escape to found a city of their own, called The Smoke. Unfortunately, the kind of people who are drawn to The Smoke are exactly the individuals that the City can't afford to lose - the smartest, the bravest, the toughest. That's not ok, and the city will do anything to get the escapees back and integrate them into the system.
Tally Youngblood is smart and brave, but she's also fifteen years old. She's easy to identify with, but she makes some horrible choices, all of them born out of the desire to fit in that motivates most teenagers most of the time. She's a kid, and you can see her learning from her mistakes and trying to do better, but she's been forced into a dangerous game and the stakes are very high.
The plot's been summarized elsewhere, so I won't repeat it here. I liked the fact that the bells and whistles of Westerfield's future served the story, rather than becoming the subject of the book. I liked the fact that Westerfield is playing with a lot of really big ideas, but never becomes heavy-handed with them. I liked the fact that Westerfield doesn't coddle his characters. And I really liked Westerfield's writing, which is utterly brilliant.