Uglies - Scott Westerfeld

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that?
Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.
But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.


4/5 - Enthralling.

I absolutely love this book. I applaud Westerfeld for his wonderful uses of character development and creating a totally unique post apocalyptic environment that deals with the concepts of beauty and perfection on a psychological and emotional level. Something that sets this book apart from others in the category of characters is the way that Westerfeld does not shy away from showing all the selfish desires of teenagers and how they would respond to the possibility of being beautiful, playing on their vanity. This might make the characters seem undesirable, but I believe that part of what makes them so repulsive is the fact that they display the same selfishness that we might feel ourselves, even if we don't admit it.

Tally is a love/hate character that you might not know how to feel about it, but her role in the book is brilliant and strongly complimented by the roles of Shay, David, and the evil Dr. Cable. This book always gets me thinking and is exciting and futuristic without being cheesy or cliche at all. It's filled with adventure, action, and even romance, all underlined by this complex ideal of beauty that many teens wrestle with. It's a truly great, captivating book that draws you into a fictional future that seems almost a little bit too realistic.

See Also: Pretties, Specials