Review Detail

Scott Westerfeld's novel, Uglies, is a dystopic vision of the future along the lines of Shirley Jackson and Pearl S. Buck. In Tally's world, everyone gets the operation that makes them pretty when they're sixteen, when they leave the dorms at Uglyville and move to New Pretty Town with the other new pretties. They get wider eyes, healthier skin, fuller lips. It's all according to the formula of asthetic attraction written in our genes by biology, all the things we instinctively look for in another.

What could possibly be wrong with that?

But not everybody wants to have the operation. Sometimes, they run away, out into the ruins of the Rusties--the civilization that existed before, the one that chopped trees and burned oil and laid down steel and concrete, and tinkered with the natural order of things until finally it outsmarted itself and became the civilization that exists now: Uglies and Pretties.

Tally's new friend Shay is an ugly who doesn't want to have the operation. She sneaks Tally out at night and shows her the ruins of an old amusement park, and tells her of a friend she has met out there that takes runaway uglies to a hidden place, a place away from being pretty--a place known only as "The Smoke." Back in Uglyville dorms, Tally can't even get Shay to experiment with the computer screens that give potential glimpses into what her new pretty form would look like

- Petrarch, De Remedies

After I read this book review for the Uglies it really got me interested in reading the series. I recommend this book to all of my friends!