Review Detail

“Specials” is such a great conclusion to a magnificent trilogy!

What I love most about this third and final installment to the Uglies trilogy is that Scott Westerfeld is able to include new details to his world even though he is finishing up on Tally’s story. Throughout the book, Westerfeld gets us inside the head of Tally and just what it’s like to be Special. Her power, both mentally and physically, is the star of this book, and it’s a power readers have not been introduced to in the first two books of the trilogy.

It would have been so easy for Westerfeld to rely on the Tally he had presented in “Uglies” and “Pretties.” Instead, he creates a new character with these new heightened abilities. What I love the most about Special Tally is that we can still see the Tally that we started with in “Uglies,” yet now there is a decidedly final growth to this girl who has become the woman that will save the world. She no longer wastes her time with teenage worries and instead understands the responsibility she carries on her shoulders.

As with the other books in the Uglies trilogy, Westerfeld makes us question whether or not the surgeries performed in this world are completely evil. If it hadn’t been for Tally’s mental transformation when becoming Special, would she have been able to have the confidence and courage to take down the government? It is thought-provoking questions like these that make “Specials” and the entire Uglies trilogy such a great read.