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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
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Uglies (Uglies Quartet)

by Scott Westerfeld

Series: Uglies (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations
3,951208568 (4.08)260
Info:

Simon & Schuster Children's (2006), Paperback, 448 pages

Member:littlebookworm
Collections:Read but unownedRating:****1/2
Tags:read 2009, borrowed, ya
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English (205)  Swedish (3)  All languages (208)
Showing 1-5 of 205 (next | show all)
A solid YA novel, following most of the standard conventions - curious, defiant protagonist, messily dystopic, futuristic society; with an interesting twist at the end - the protagonist's defiance of the social order does not fully succeed. Instead, she gets swept up into it for a (you guessed it) sequel. And another, and another. If nothing else, a good page-turner. ( )
  milkyfangs | Nov 23, 2009 |
Tally is anxious for her 16th birthday when she can finally have the operation and become Pretty. She crashes a party in New Pretty Town to visit her best friend Peris. During her frantic escape she meets Shay, a friend who has decided to run to a place called The Smoke and not have the operation. Tally is forced by the evil Special Circumstances to follow Shay and reveal the location of The Smoke. An interesting look into the future and the complexities of brains vs. beauty and the ability of people to control their own decisions and lives. The first in a series. ( )
1 vote ewyatt | Nov 22, 2009 |
So good I read the whole series. I have a soft spot for post-apocalyptic tales. There's a not-so-subtle message in these books that should give readers a chance to take a good look in the mirror. ( )
1 vote liberlibri | Nov 18, 2009 |
I thought this actoion packed science fiction book was an awsome book! It always kept me interested. It is about a young girl named Tally, she is about to have an operation that will turn her pretty. But everything she knows changes when she meets a girl named Shay. Shay runs away and Tally is faced with a decisson that will change her whole life: Turn in her best friend or stay ugly... forever.This book is the first of the series I would also get the other 3 books!
1 vote MrFClass | Nov 13, 2009 |
I was given this book as a gift by one of my friends. My instant thought was "Oh no, I'm going to have to pretend to like this!"

I didn't like it in the end...I loved it! It's a teen book that could easily be read by an adult and enjoyed. On a basic level there's a wonderful sci fi story, but dig little deeper and the book contains a very superficial future and a lot of negative views about the "rusties" - us!

I'm not a huge sci fi and don't enjoy complicated explanations of unusual technologies, this book managed to indulge my love of sci fi without me getting confused. ( )
1 vote svh_mad | Nov 10, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 205 (next | show all)
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Series (with order)
Canonical Title
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Part I: Turning Pretty

Is it not good to make society full of beautiful people?

- Yang Yuan, quoted in The New York Times
Dedication
First words
The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.
Quotations
Part II: The Smoke

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."

- Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and Moral, "Of Beauty"
Part III: Into the Fire

Beauty is that Medusa's head

Which men go armed to seek and sever.

It is most deadly when most dead,

And dead will stare and sting forever.

- Archibald MacLeish, "Beauty"
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Uglies

Book description

Amazon.com (ISBN 0689865384, Paperback)

Playing on every teen’s passionate desire to look as good as everybody else, Scott Westerfeld (Midnighters) projects a future world in which a compulsory operation at sixteen wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty by conforming to an ideal standard of beauty. The "New Pretties" are then free to play and party, while the younger "Uglies" look on enviously and spend the time before their own transformations in plotting mischievous tricks against their elders. Tally Youngblood is one of the most daring of the Uglies, and her imaginative tricks have gotten her in trouble with the menacing department of Special Circumstances. She has yearned to be pretty, but since her best friend Shay ran away to the rumored rebel settlement of recalcitrant Uglies called The Smoke, Tally has been troubled. The authorities give her an impossible choice: either she follows Shay’s cryptic directions to The Smoke with the purpose of betraying the rebels, or she will never be allowed to become pretty. Hoping to rescue Shay, Tally sets off on the dangerous journey as a spy. But after finally reaching The Smoke she has a change of heart when her new lover David reveals to her the sinister secret behind becoming pretty. The fast-moving story is enlivened by many action sequences in the style of videogames, using intriguing inventions like hoverboards that use the rider’s skateboard skills to skim through the air, and bungee jackets that make wild downward plunges survivable -- and fun. Behind all the commotion is the disturbing vision of our own society -- the Rusties -- visible only in rusting ruins after a virus destroyed all petroleum. Teens will be entranced, and the cliffhanger ending will leave them gasping for the sequel. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:51 -0400)

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