The+Soprano+Oompaloompas+Reviews

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

 [|﻿Summary from Goodreads] 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

Review by Brianna Nelson: ﻿I thought this book was pretty good overall, it was a little bit slow at the beginning when she was hanging out with Shay. I really liked the adventure in the book, especially her journey to the Smoke and her time there. It had romance in it just for teenage girls to get them hooked and keep them reading! The plot was great, set in the future when everyone is surgically altered to look beautiful. It's a great example of how things can change over time. She goes after Shay after she runs away to keep from being made pretty. She goes after her with the full intention of ratting her out to the Specials so that Tally will be able to be made pretty. When she gets there she meets David, and everything changes. She actually starts to enjoy life in the Smoke, and life with David. I think she starts to have the full intention of staying until she accidently calls the Specials. Then she must save her friends from what she used to want so bad... becoming pretty. He did really good with thinking of a new idea. So many people are writing the Dystopian genre now that a lot of the ideas are being taken. I thought the idea of everyone being surgically altered to look pretty was a new, wonderful idea in the way of showing how things could be in the future. Some things that I found lacking first is that things took forever to get moving. It was pretty far into the book before anything really exciting actually happened. Which is why I felt it was going really slow at the beginning, you just have to push past that to actually get into the book. I think that it throws your emotions around a little too much. At the beginning you feel for one guy, and by the end you feel for another guy. Westerfeld just continues that cycle throughout the rest of the series. Throwing your heart from one guy to another. But by the end, I was in love with the book and couldn't wait to read the second book in the series. I would definitely recommend this book to people. Especially teenage girls who are fans of Twilight, Vampire Diaries, and all those other romantic books that tear your heart between guys. I give this book a thumbs up.

 Fun Extras

[|Visit Scott's Website]

[|Take the Uglies Quiz]

[|Scott's Blog]

[|Visit the Fansite]

media type="youtube" key="pp7BdT5IGz8?fs=1" height="385" width="640"