#28- Uglies By Scott Westerfeld

#28- Uglies

Rating- 8.5/1o

I would say that the biggest flaw in my reading goal is that I only really have time to read the first book in each series on this list. I guess another flaw would be that the books rated were allowed to be series... it would be a whole lot easier to only allow singular books. Because I am only getting a small glipse of the story that people are really voting on its difficult to accurately review and judge it by its ranking.

I have read the entire uglies series previous to finding this list, and I remember liking it but couldnt remember exact plot details. I was really getting into uglies and when I flipped to the last page found myself wishing the story would continue because I wanted to know what happens next. I will have to decide whether I have time now or will wait until after August to finish the remainder of the series.

Uglies follows a girl named Tally Youngblood. She lives in a dystopian future (this seems to be a common trend in the top 100) where at the age of 16 everyone undergoes a surgery in order to become pretty. Until then being normal is considered ugly and people count down the days to their 16 birthday so they can become beautiful like everyone else. Tally has a late birthday and its the summer right before she turns 16 when we are introduced to the story. She is rather bored and trying to find some entertainment when she meets Shay. Shay happens to have the same birthday as Tally and they are both excited that they will have a companion until the surgery date.

As they get closer and closer to their birthdays Shay starts to have doubts. The girls are looking to adventure when Shay tells Tally that she wants to show her somewhere, out of the city. They travel to the ruins and once there Shay lets it be known that she doesnt want to have the surgery, that she wants to lose the idea of conventional beauty and just be herself. She has plans to run away with a man named David, to a town called The Smokes. She wants Tally to go with her.

After Tally refuses, Shay goes without her and Tally assumes that she will turn pretty as planned. That is, until her birthday when she is taken to the authorities who give her a drastic choice. Follow Shay to The Smokes and turn her in, or never turn pretty and live as an ugly for the rest of her life. Tally now has to make a decision that will change the rest of her life.

So as I said above, its difficult to completely rate a book when I know that there is still more to the story that needs to be read. Trying to ignore that fact and pretending that this is a singular story its very well done. I enjoy the characters, and the advancement of the storyline doesnt feel too slow or too rushed. 

I like the idea of a future where everyone looks exactly the same and while I get that its clearly a bad thing in this book I remember the first time I read it (I must have been 14 or 15) thinking that I wouldnt mind a society where people all looked the same so we weren't judged on our beauty but instead our mind. While i'm not sure the answer would be to make everyone unbelievably flawless at age 16 and make everyone younger than that believe that they are ugly and worthless, the idea could be cool with some work. Obviously there is much more to the book than changing looks and reading on you find out that becoming a pretty is much more dangerous than just getting plastic surgery, but the idea of it is very cool. Just seems that the government took it a step too far.

“But you weren't born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.”