AUTHOR APPRECIATION WEEK 2: SCOTT WESTERFELD: UGLIES

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld



My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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. GoodReads

This is the start of a wonderful trilogy! I stumbled across this book on Paperback Swap. I loved the review and quickly ordered it. Scott manages to blend a great adventure story, with relevant themes that are worth pondering by teens and adults alike.

Tally is counting the day's til her surgery. She has even snuck out and visited her best friend at the glittery pretty town. She thinks her future is set. Then her best friend Shay confides that she doesn't want to be Pretty, that she is going to escape to the Smoke. The Smokies are a group of teens and adults that live on the edges of society and choose to NOT have the Pretty surgeries. They live outside in nature.

Shay's flight has devestating results to Tally's plans. She is now ordered by the mysterious Special Circumstances to find Shay and the Smokies. She is given a transmitter to activate once there. If she fails Tally will be forbidden to have her surgery and must live as an Ugly forever.

Once in the Smoke her mission becomes complicated. She finds her self drawn to the mysterious group,especially to David a young Smokie who changes her perception of her world. Tally must decide what is more important to her, and her choice will change her life and the life of the entire Smokies colony.

This book was one of the first YA series I read and definetly made me embrace the genre and all of Scott's work in general. A great read.



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