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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
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Uglies (edition 2011)

by Scott Westerfeld

Series: Uglies (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
7,830461371 (3.99)439
Member:SmashAttack
Title:Uglies
Authors:Scott Westerfeld
Info:Simon Pulse (2011), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 432 pages
Collections:Sci-Fi, Reviewed, Young Adult, Dystopian, YA Fantasy, Your library
Rating:****
Tags:None

Work details

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

  1. 302
    The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (elephantshoe, liberlibri, electronicmemory)
    elephantshoe: futuristic world again, but the teens have to compete and fight to the death in a televised reality show.
  2. 160
    The Giver by Lois Lowry (KamTonnes)
    KamTonnes: Uglies and The Giver both portray societies that limit conflict by having very specific rules, roles, and expectations for everyone. Also, in both stories, the main characters slowly start to question the values of their respective communities.
  3. 60
    Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (TheBentley)
  4. 50
    Delirium by Lauren Oliver (LauraT81)
    LauraT81: Very similar dystopian societies where an operation is meant to subdue the members.
  5. 50
    Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder (flemmily)
    flemmily: Very similar heroines in similarly closed-off, oppressive worlds. Similar emphasis on an unknown "outside." Similar environmental emphasis, although Westerfeld focuses more on nature, whereas Snyder deals more with issues of population control.
  6. 50
    Matched by Ally Condie (kqueue)
    kqueue: Another story about a 'perfect' society that is deeply flawed once you look beneath the surface. Both feature strong heroines who fight against the powers in control, and both have themes of independence and free will.
  7. 40
    Specials by Scott Westerfeld (ysar)
  8. 40
    Pretties by Scott Westerfeld (ysar)
  9. 40
    Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien (PamFamilyLibrary)
    PamFamilyLibrary: An intelligent, quickly paced YA dystopia.
  10. 40
    The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (goodiegoodie)
  11. 20
    The White Mountains by John Christopher (KingRat)
    KingRat: The White Mountains contains issues similar to those of Uglies: secret control of a society, "mind control", induction into that society, and rebellion against it while pretending to be a member. There are obvious major differences too. Still, enough similarities in style and substance that I suspect people who enjoy one will enjoy the other.… (more)
  12. 20
    Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (clif_hiker)
  13. 31
    Skinned by Robin Wasserman (Phantasma)
  14. 10
    The chrysalids by John Wyndham (Anonymous user)
  15. 10
    Gamers by Thomas K. Carpenter (terriko)
    terriko: Great teen fiction! Gamers posits a world where everyone competes using games to define their future, while Uglies posits a world where everyone becomes pretty at 16. While these are pretty different worlds, both books chronicle stories of heroines not going quite where their society expects them to go...… (more)
  16. 00
    Peeps by Scott Westerfeld (ToxicMasquerade)
  17. 00
    Extras by Scott Westerfeld (ysar)
  18. 00
    Child of Earth (The Sea of Grass Trilogy) by David Gerrold (goodiegoodie)
  19. 00
    The Diary of Pelly D by L. J. Adlington (Anonymous user)
  20. 00
    The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (Bitter_Grace, goodiegoodie)

(see all 29 recommendations)

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English (451)  Swedish (3)  French (1)  Spanish (1)  German (1)  Danish (1)  Portuguese (Portugal) (1)  All languages (459)
Showing 1-5 of 451 (next | show all)
This was my introduction to distopian fiction, and I really liked it. It gives me high hopes for the genre. Tally is not particularly likable in the beginning, but I feel like that was kind of intentional on Westerfeld's part. I would love to see this series made into a movie. I recommend it for all young readers! ( )
  frozenplums | May 3, 2013 |
Tally resists the mandatory operation that every 16-year-old must endure to change all teens into “new pretties.” Adventure is the result in this futuristic novel. The first of the Uglies Trilogy.
  KilmerMSLibrary | Apr 30, 2013 |
Enjoying this series so far, which is kind of like a cross between the Hunger Games and the Giver. ( )
  erinster | Apr 26, 2013 |
Tally Youngblood is ready for the surge, a surgery that all uglies get at 16 to make them beautiful. She's ready to join her best friend Peris in New Pretty Town and begin a life of luxury and indulgence. But her new friend Shay throws a wrench in her plans. When Shay runs off to the Smoke to avoid being made pretty, Special Circumstances sends Tally to bring her back and to relay to them the location of the Smoke. When life with the Smokies and its leader David turns out to be pretty amazing, Tally has to make the hard choice: should she betray her new friends and become pretty, or live her life in the wilderness, ugly for all time?
This is a great book to get kids reading, especially considering the popularity of the Hunger Games. The plot is great, with lots of twists and surprises. The main character is not particularly likable in the beginning, but as she grows and develops, the reader learns to love her. This is another dystopian novel, but it engages with a much subtler form of corrupt government. It's very readable and great for readers as young as sixth grade. ( )
  Shelbya14 | Apr 24, 2013 |
Tally Youngblood lives in a futuristic society that acculturates its citizens to believe that they are ugly until age 16 when they'll undergo an operation that will change them into pleasure-seeking "pretties." Anticipating this happy transformation, Tally meets Shay, another female ugly, who shares her enjoyment of hoverboarding and risky pranks. But Shay also disdains the false values and programmed conformity of the society and urges Tally to defect with her to the Smoke, a distant settlement of simple-living conscientious objectors. Tally declines, yet when Shay is found missing by the authorities, Tally is coerced by the cruel Dr. Cable to find her and her compatriots–or remain forever "ugly."

Tally's adventuresome spirit helps her locate Shay and the Smoke. It also attracts the eye of David, the aptly named youthful rebel leader to whose attentions Tally warms. However, she knows she is living a lie, for she is a spy who wears an eye-activated locator pendant that threatens to blow the rebels' cover.

Ethical concerns will provide a good source of discussion as honesty, justice, and free will are all oppressed in this well-conceived dystopia. Characterization, which flirts so openly with the importance of teen self-concept, is strong, and although lengthy, the novel is highly readable with a convincing plot that incorporates futuristic technologies and a disturbing commentary on our current public policies.

A strange novel at the start, but really gripping. Couldn’t put it down at the end! ( )
  dalzan | Apr 24, 2013 |
Showing 1-5 of 451 (next | show all)
The Uglies books are the perfect parables of adolescent life, where adult-imposed milestones, rituals, and divide-and-rule tactics amp children's natural adolescent insecurities into a full-blown, decade-long psychosis.
added by lampbane | editBoing Boing, Cory Doctorow (Jan 1, 2006)
 

» Add other authors (5 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Scott Westerfeldprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Corral, RodrigoCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Jaskoll, YaffaDesignersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Montbertrand, CarineNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pelleteri, CarissaCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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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
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Book description
Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that?

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.
Haiku summary

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (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 Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:30:59 -0500)

(see all 2 descriptions)

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? 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.… (more)

(summary from another edition)

» see all 4 descriptions

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