Pretties

"Pretties" is a continuation of the Uglies series where Tally Youngblood has now returned to the city and become a pretty (with the ultimate goal that she would be given the treatment as a test subject and hopefully be cured).

It's alright, but not one of my favorites. If I never hear anyone use the word "bubbly" again, I will be very, very happy. I feel like it got a little shallow and annoying, but maybe that is how Pretties are supposed to feel/describes Tally's new life well. It definitely improved towards the end, but I would still give it about 2.5 stars overall.

I know a lot of people complain that this book is worse than "Uglies" but I actually thought it was better.

Something about Tally finding her way out of pretty haze makes your heart go out to her, doesn't it?

Also, Zane is a bubbly new development, isn't he? ;)

I guess I never really liked David. Partly because of the way he ditched Shay the moment something better showed up.
Not that Tally isn't to blame there. I think they both screwed up.

but that's the good thing about this series. Everybody fucks up so severely. And it takes a lot of courage to atone for past sins; it's much easier to just run from them. and these characters are all making up for one thing or another. It's very admirable. I think Scott Westerfed did an excellent job. :)

This book took me by surprise! I assumed that since Tally was turned into a “pretty-head” the book would be off track and boring, but man was I wrong. Scott Westerfeld did it again! He worked just enough emotion, action, romance, and intrigue to make this second book in the series just as great at the first. Although, there were some things that frustrated me the book as a whole was amazing!

Tally is one of my frustrations! I like her character, yet I hate her character. Tally is quite gullible and keeps running into these traps. She just seems full of it to me. Her thought process can leave you quite annoyed sometimes. I feel like I cannot relate to her on as many levels as I would have liked. On the other hand, she is a good person at heart. She cares about her friends and even people she just meets. Tally is a fighter, which is another reason I actually like her character. She does not back down easily.

The romance in this book is another thing that has thrown me off. I know that we do not always end up with our first loves, but Tally has really screwed up in this one. She now has two guys that she “loves”. At first I went along with it thinking “Oh ok, she lost her memory when she became a pretty it’s cool”, until she remembered everything and still chose to choose another guy, Zane. I would not have been so annoyed with this information had I felt that David and her separated rationally. There are places in the book that make you feel like maybe she does not want him anymore because he is so “unattractive”.

The twists in this book just keep getting better and better. Tally has made friends with a new “camp”, and she experiences how their life is manipulated from day to day. She also finds out what happens when you take matters into your own hands and make irrational decisions (more than once let me add). The main twists are what had me on the edge of my seat. I was absolutely shocked with the ending!

With that being said, the ending was amazing! It is a perfect place to pick up from on the next book. I am eager to find out what happens to Zane, Shay, Tally, and David. ******SPOILER SO PLEASE SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH********* After finding out that Shay has become a special, I have no clue how Tally will manage to save the day now. Not to mention that Zane has had half his brain destroyed. How will they possibly fix him? And how will Tally make their love last?

I have become neutral with Shay’s character in this book. At first I liked her because she wanted to be different, but now I feel that she has jumped off the deep end. I understand that she has had her mind messed with and she cannot quite put her finger on the “weird feelings” bothering her, but she has become a total monster. I am kind of sad about this because I really wanted to like her character. I feel bad for her and I want her to be the hero at the end of the day, but I also wonder what this story would become if she were to miraculously see the light of day. This has left me with a feeling of “whatever” on how her character turns out in the end.

The story has become a little confusing at this point. (move to next paragraph to skip this spoiler)*****SPOILER***** In this book, you find out there is another civilization living under the control of Special Circumstances and “The Pretties”. There is a slight amount of information that explains why they keep them trapped in their environment, but I found myself wanting a little more. We find out that they are the reason for the lesions in the brain. Their civilization has been in a blood feud for years, and for no apparent reason as far as we know. The lesions keep the pretties from conflict and anger. I get the fact that studying them helps progress their research, but where did they find these people and how long has this been going on. Why does no one really know about them?

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It has some pretty interesting concepts on what the future could hold. The characters may need some improvement, but I still have a couple I route for. I am eager to read the next book in this series to see where Westerfeld goes with this story. I would strongly recommend this read to anyone. People with an open mind will really enjoy this one!

This was so much better than the first book. I totally loved it.
I loved the new pretty words- it was so bubbly making.

I was heartbroken over David, I think that he and Tally are the perfect couple and not Zane(-la) who I think is cool by the way. I liked the fact that he didn't blame Tally outright for begging him to take the pill which now eats his brain.
My worst character in this book is Shay. I liked her in the first book but in this one she was just so off. She's the one who always get Tally(-wa) into trouble and then blames it on Tally. She didn't want the cure in the first book - I respect that decision as it was her body and she did not want to risk her life- which led to Tally deciding to become pretty. After Tally became pretty, got the cure which she shared with Zane, she (Shay) was angry that Tally didn't share it with her and turned herself into a cutter, then joined Special Circumstances and became a Special Special. If that wasn't enough, she decided to force tally into being a Special too! God she's crazy!
I still like the Special Circumstances though just not the Special Specials.

Anyway, this book is amazing and makes me realise that being pretty is not always what it's wrapped up to be.

Love this book. Except maybe for the fact that Shay is ALWAYS the one who gets Tally in trouble, and Tally is ALWAYS the one who has to get them both out.

Tally Youngblood has just given herself up to become a Pretty. Now she's living the good life: going to parties every night, getting everything for free, and so on. What she doesn't know is that she's got brain damage. Everything in her brain about the Smoke has been twisted so that she can't remember what really happened there. And she's fine with that, until she gets a strange package from someone called Croy, containing two pills, and a letter from herself giving her permission to take them. Tally is very hesitant at first, but her new boyfriend convinces her to take them. They take one each because Tally is such a wimp she doesn't have the guts to take them by herself. What she doesn't know is that they were supposed to be taken together. One has things that eat your brain, and one has things that kill the things that eat your brain. Now Zach is having his brain killed slowly. And Tally just cured herself. You know. As it happens.

(*SPOILER*) So on, the story progresses, and then just as you're thinking, okay, just smooth cruising from here, Shay, duh, gets jealous because Tally gave Zach the pill and not her. So she seperates herself from Tally and becomes a Cutter, people who cut themselves to get "bubbly" (where their mental fog clears and they can think clearly). And then she gets so jealous and weirdo that she waltzes up to the evilest evil person in the whole series, and says "Please make me a Special", the evilest group in the series. So she becomes a special, they catch Tally, and she becomes a special. (*END SPOILER*)

This book really makes you think about what perfection means. And makes you think about whether you would prefer to be clear-minded, living in the wilderness and "ugly" (even though we all know "uglies" are just normal people), or beautiful, partying all the time, and brainwashed? Does it matter?

The thing that I love most about Scott Westerfeld’s "Pretties," the second book in his Uglies trilogy, is that it really makes you second guess which “state of being” is the best: Ugly, Pretty or Special. I’ve had seemingly endless conversations about this with fellow Westerfeld junkies, and the verdict is still out for me.

So many people argue that Ugly has got to be the way to go. First of all, Westerfeld makes it clear that Uglies aren’t actually ugly, they just look like you and me. And Ugly is an everyday person who just happens to have never had a lick of plastic surgery, and we’ve all seen one too many fish face (I’m looking at you Taylor Armstrong) to know that a little plastic surgery goes a long way, and often goes horrifically wrong. Furthermore, as an Ugly, your brain just hasn’t been messed with, and we don’t need people poking around in our cerebellums unless absolutely necessary.

But the Pretty way of life seems pretty dang good (pardon the pun): You are biologically irresistible and worthy of those Calvin Klein or Victoria’s Secret billboard ads. You can never gain a single ounce of fat, so go ahead and have that extra slice of bacon. You have absolutely nothing to worry about, ever. I don’t know about you, but a little poke here and a tad of nanotechnology there to never experience a single second of anxiety seems worth it. Worry free and explosively hot? Yes please.

And then there’s Specials, the superhuman results of surgery that lets you run faster, jump higher and kick butt better than anybody has ever hoped to before. People will fantasies of superhero status should apply here.

Of course, it all comes down to control. Does it matter if there’s a chip in your brain if you have the best life of luxury? Can you blame someone for wanting to be a Pretty and stop worrying about the world? Are looks on the outside that powerful in today’s society that you’d be willing to lose your intellectual freedom? What if that loss of freedom means you’re carefree for the rest of your life and in a constant state of bliss? Is having untold amounts of physical strength worth it if you have to use that power for someone else’s means? All of these questions are brought up in "Pretties" and it’s these questions that make the book such a refreshingly thoughtful experience.

Reader reviewed by Bianna

One book you will never put down. All you have to do is start reading the first page and you are immediatly propelled into a twisting adventure between fighting the lesions in the brain and trying to fight the Special Circumstances. It will entertain you for months and months by just rereading the wonderful well written book Pretties by Scott Westerfled. I still can't believe that what happened at the end! There is a bunch of romance and chase scenes and I wil garentee that you will not want to put this book down. SO READ THIS BOOK!

Reader reviewed by Kyla

I absolutely LOVE this book and all the others in this series (But especially this one!). This book is the second in the Uglies series by Scott Westerfield and is set in the future. In the world of this series, when you are of a certain age you are required to get a surgey that makes you perfect. Sorta  like an extreme version of plastic surgery. After the operation you go live in the designated place for pretties, in Tally's (The main character) case it is on an island. Tally gets her surgery and lives in Prettyville and has a lot of fun, finding a nice guy whom she falls in love with (I'm sure most female readers would fall in love with him, too! He is awesome!). But her happy turns bad and she has to fix it and figure out what she wants from her life AGAIN! I like the start of the book where she is happy as a pretty and goes to parties. I just like the idea. This book made me long for Scott Westerfield's future now. I would reccemend this book to anyone that is interested in this stuff and even ones that aren't. It is an awseome books, though there are some plot holes.
~Kyla

Reader reviewed by Kyla

I absolutely LOVE this book and all the others in this series (But especially this one!). This book is the second in the Uglies series by Scott Westerfield and is set in the future. In the world of this series, when you are of a certain age you are required to get a surgey that makes you perfect. Sorta  like an extreme version of plastic surgery. After the operation you go live in the designated place for pretties, in Tally's (The main character) case it is on an island. Tally gets her surgery and lives in Prettyville and has a lot of fun, finding a nice guy whom she falls in love with (I'm sure most female readers would fall in love with him, too! He is awesome!). But her happy turns bad and she has to fix it and figure out what she wants from her life AGAIN! I like the start of the book where she is happy as a pretty and goes to parties. I just like the idea. This book made me long for Scott Westerfield's future now. I would reccemend this book to anyone that is interested in this stuff and even ones that aren't. It is an awseome books, though there are some plot holes.
~Kyla  : )

Reader reviewed by Ruthie