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: ~Uglies~KcS~
Summary: 5 Stars
How would you feel if you were three months younger than your best friend and you had to wait to turn "pretty" before you could see him or her. Then in the mean while you make a friend. Here's the catch though. Before your new friend and you turn 16 and can get the pretty operation done, your friend runs away and you can't turn "pretty" unless you help these people called Special Circumstance find her. But you would then betray her and break the promise you made when she gave you directions to the place she was running away to.
This book is about a 16 year old girl name Tally Youngblood. It takes place in the future 500 centuries after the twenty-first century. She lives in a place called Uglisville and when anyone there turns 16 they have an operation. This operation makes them pretty and lets them enter New Pretty Town where they party all the time and where everyone looks perfect. When Tally's best friend turns 16 three months before her she is stuck all alone. So she makes a new friend called Shay. Shay and her have the same birthday and so for three months Tally becomes very close with Shay. The week before they both turn 16 Shay tells Tally that she is going to run away to a place where her other friends ran away to because they didn't want to turn pretty. This place was called the Smokes. Shay invites Tally to join her. Tally really doesn't want to give up her dream and becoming a pretty so she refuses and says good-bye to Shay. Even though she didn't want to go Shay left Tally directions just in case she would change her minds. Directions only Tally would understand. She also made Tally promise that she would tell no one else of the Smokes too.
Then on Tally's sixteenth birthday when she's right about to enter the operation, she meets this lady called Dr. Cable who is a Special, and part of the group called Special Circumstance and she tells Tally that unless she tells her where Shay is she won't be able to get the "pretty operation" and be ugly forever. Tally then decided that betraying a friend is better than being Ugly forever. So she sets off into the wild and decodes the direction that Shay gave her. When she finally does find Shay after the long journey she doesn't activate the pendant that the Specials gave her right away. The pendant was given to her and the Specials told her to activate it when she finds the Smoke and they will be there in less than a day. Something stops Tally from doing this right away though. When she gets to know the Smokes better and the people there she finds out some pretty scary things about turning pretty. Then she has to decide whether or not she wants to stay ugly or betray the whole Smokes.
I thought that Scott Westerfeld is a very wonderful and talented writer. I love the way he describes certain objects. He's really good at making the character seem real. I give this book five stars because it's really well written and exciting. Once you read it, you won't be able to put the book down. I recommend this book to readers over 12 because there is some mature content and it's pretty scary how this could possibly happen one day. Otherwise I recommend this book to every reader over 12 even possibly for adults.
Book Review: Awful Book.
Summary: 1 Stars
This was the WORST book I've ever read. Honestly why did the writer even think up such a dumb book?Book Review: Westerfeld Creates A Beautiful Dystopia in "Uglies"
Summary: 5 Stars
I've only seen one episode of The Twilight Zone. In this episode, a woman undergoes a battery of surgeries to look normal. At the end of the episode, viewers learn that this latest surgery has failed: the woman is still hideous. Except that to the audience she is beautiful. Online research led me to another episode where teenagers are surgically altered to live longer and conform to a unified standard of beauty (based on a limited number of acceptable "models"). "Uglies," Scott Westerfeld's dystopic novel, plays similar games of perception.
The novel starts with Tally Youngblood a fifteen-year-old girl desperately waiting for her sixteenth birthday when she will be reunited with her best friend and, more importantly, when she will finally be pretty.
"Uglies" is set in the distant future after a mysterious global catastrophe precipitated changes to the foundations of what readers would call modern society. Fearful of war and violence cities now operate as independent states (think Renaissance Italy as opposed to contemporary Italy). Isolated and self-sufficient, the cities have agreed to certain standards for the greater good.
New technology ensures that citizens never want for food or luxury items, weapons of any kind are largely illegal, and at the age of sixteen everyone undergoes a series of extreme surgeries to better conform to societal standards of beauty. The logic being that, since humans are preconditioned to respond to certain visual cues in each other already (big eyes are non-threatening, a clear complexion and good teeth indicate that a person is healthy), applying these beauty standards will reduce conflict and create a more harmonious society.
But in a world where everyone is movie-star-gorgeous (oldies like Rudolph Valentino and Greta Garbo are considered "natural pretties"), normal people are so not pretty. In short, they're ugly.
Things change for Tally when she meets Shay, another Ugly girl, who wants to run away before the operation to a place called The Smoke where people can live like "Rusties" (that would be us basically) in the wilderness without any surgery. As the novel progresses, and Special Circumstances (a government agency) coerces Tally into finding The Smoke for them, Tally is forced to choose what means more: friendship or beauty?
As the plot might suggest, this is a science fiction novel. Just to be clear, the real difference between sci-fi and fantasy is that the technology in science fiction novels could conceivably work if someone ever built it (dragons, most likely, are never going to be genetically engineered so they're a good indicator of a fantasy novel). At times this leads to more explanation of, say, hoverboard mechanics in the novel than is strictly necessary to the plot but the rest of the book makes up for this small shortcoming.
What makes "Uglies" great, besides how it looks at cultural values, is Westerfeld's use of language. The novel is not pretentious or brash. Instead, Westerfeld creates a narrative voice that is really unique--especially for a sweeping sci-fi saga like the Uglies trilogy. The novel opens with Tally observing that "The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit." That is not, it is fair to say, a typical opening for any novel. Yet Westerfeld moves from that observation seamlessly into the story.
This book is the first in the Uglies trilogy (followed by "Pretties" and "Specials") which focuses on Tally and her city. The scope of each book can largely stand alone, but to get the full story it's best to read the entire trilogy. Additionally, Westerfeld released a companion book to the trilogy last year called "Extras" which is set a few years after the trilogy with different main characters.
"Uglies" is simultaneously funny and frightening, showing how overvalued beauty can be while illustrating how Tally's world has been conditioned to believe there's no other way to live. The sections where Westerfeld describes the Rusty Ruins and the end of that era are particularly haunting (and eerily reminiscent of the History Channel's recent documentary "Life After People").
Sci-fi book discussions often bring up a writer's "world building" in reference to how well a writer creates their alternate universe. Westerfeld's world is built really well. The cities have their own culture, the characters their own slang, but Westerfeld manages to bring in enough references to our own contemporary culture that it's easy for readers to believe Tally's world is built on the ruins of our own.
Book Review: Amazing Book Review on Uglies
Summary: 5 Stars
The Uglies is a sci-fi book. This book is perfect if you what to understand how special it is to be different. The main character in the book is Tally. At first, I thought Tally was drawn to the pretty world. Later in the book, however, Tally drifts away as she learns secrets and meets new people. Some conversations the characters have are believable and some are not! What I like about Shay is that she's very courageous. The language is not hard to understand, so it's also part of the great things the book promises. I like the way the book is written because you'll never want to stop reading. The plot is easy to follow and the main ideas are followed by amazing, clear details. You can guess what will happen next because of the great details leading up to the next chapter. I would recommend this book to others who love suspense and thrilling adventures. At the end it's a cliffhanger. You'll want to read the next book, as well. This book reminds me of an experience I had. When I had been told the truth about something I thought was good, I was shocked like Tally. I would definitely read other books by this author.Book Review: Fascinating concept! A book worth reading
Summary: 3 Stars
What I liked about the book:
1. It offers an interesting commentary into society's perception on beauty, which is particularly relevant in an age when people take pictures of Angelina Jolie's lips to their plastic surgeons and say, "Make my lips like hers." It's great food for thought and conversation.
2. The plot was tightly woven and believable. Westerfeld saved his surprises for the right moments and created a world of extreme fantasy that somehow seemed very real in the context of the book.
What didn't completely sell me about the book:
1. As a female reader, I didn't identify with the character of Tallie as much as I have with other books in which the main character is a female. I didn't feel like she was enough like me or enough like any of the girls I'd ever met. It had nothing to do with her being a tomboy or a risk-taker or anything like that, it was something more subtle about her interactions and thought-processes that I can't quite pinpoint. I think it might've been that she was portrayed mostly in two ways in the book: 1. as the risky, devil-may-care hell-raiser with not a feminine bone in her body or 2. desiring to be a shallow, plastically beautiful, worshipped Pretty. The truth is most girls are somewhere in between those two.
Anyway, all that to say that she isn't as easy to identify with as, say Meyer's Bella in the Twilight Series. I just didn't feel like I really "knew" her by the end of the book.
Overall, the book is definitely worth reading, but those of literary sensitivity should know that it is primarily plot driven and doesn't delve as deeply into character development.