Uglies by: Scott Westerfeld

Part 1

       Tally was the main character in my book.  During my book, she loses friends, and makes new ones that change her life forever.  This book is set in the future where people are forced to have an operation to make them beautiful, or not ugly.  During the book, Tally meets Shay, a girl who would not only be her friend, but encourage her to run away from what she had been taught.

            Tally was rebellious.  In the beginning of the book, she and Shay were staying in the same dorms.  They used to sneak out at night and go into Prettytown (where the new Pretties live).  They also hover boarded around and went outside of the city limits into the Rusty Ruins (remains of our civilization that was destroyed by bacteria that got into our gas).

            Tally was also superficial. The entire book she was wishing to be pretty, and she couldn’t see past her flaws.  When Shay runs away, a team called the Special Forces tells Tally that she can’t get pretty until Shay comes back. So what does Tally do? She goes after Shay, and ruins an alter civilization (called Smoke) where people can accept who they are and how they look and also held other ugly runaways from her town.  And to make maters worse, she takes Shay’s boyfriend (David) and doesn’t ask Shay, and thinks that it’s extremely fine to do so.

            She was also repentant.  Even though she caused all the Smoke’s members to be captured, and David’s father to be killed, she risked her life and saved them in the end. Tally tells how she was a spy, and was forced to send Special Forces to Smoke.  She asks the Smokies for forgiveness, but also adds that they shouldn’t forgive her.

            Tally was sacrificial. When David’s mother wants to do some testing on a pretty to find a cure for a lesion( weird thing that happens in the brain during the operation that makes a pretty more cooperative), Tally offers to make herself pretty and become a lab rat.  David’s mother doesn’t know if it will work, but she’s willing to try.

            Overall, Tally was a rebellious, superficial, repentant, and sacrificial ugly.  Thought I didn’t like some of her traits, most of them were good traits to have.  They helped her, and also made the plot more interesting.

                                                                                                           

Part 2

            I was half-and-half about this book.  It was a good read, with pretty good characters.  The only thing that I didn’t like was Tally.  Her want to become pretty throughout the entire book just annoyed me.  Though I can honestly say that it is the first Sci-fi book that I’ve liked.  I can really identify with Tally in that she just wants to be beautiful and just party and not worry about life.  She’s willing to do anything do get there.  But really in the end she realizes that she’s amazing just the way she was, but she still sacrifices herself to become a test subject.  Now, I wouldn’t have lead Special Forces to Smoke, but that’s another story.

            I also like this book because it is a light read. The author also did not go into very deep and depressing parts.  For example, on page 209, ‘Still, she wouldn’t have traded anything for this moment, standing there and looking down at the plains spread out below’.  It’s just a basic sentence, but that’s how the entire book is written like, but it has descriptive language as well.    For example, on page 1, ‘The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit’.  It’s not a good thought, but it does describe what the sky looked like.  Another example of descriptive language is on page 371, where the author writes, ‘At the peak of her arc, the silence seemed to overwhelm everything- her stomach-churning weightlessness, and the mix of excitement.’ 

            I would recommend this to most girls.  I don’t know if any guys would like reading this book because it is a chick read. Although they still might like the story.  It does contain a hint of romance between Shay and David, and Tally and David.  Because that fact that it isn’t a huge part of the book, people who don’t like romance novels would still like the book.  Some might also consider it to be a chick book because the whole book is about getting an operation that makes you pretty. But that’s an issue that guys can also relate to.

            In the end, I did like this book.  It told the story of teenagers who rebelled against what they were taught.  This book reminded me that sometimes your elders might be wrong, and that it’s important to question things you don’t think are right.