Uglies (Uglies Trilogy, Book 1)

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Review
Playing on every teens 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 Shays 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 riders 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

Product 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.

Customer Reviews: Read 281 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Can't wait to read the next one... December 14, 2005
57 out of 61 found this review helpful

I have not read other novels by the author, but I will be after reading this one. This was an incredibly well written book. The setting was well created and the characters were believable and well developed. There are no great leaps of faith that one has to make with some science fiction attempts. The story line makes sense. You're wondering how could this all work, and just about when you get to the point were you have to have some type of explanation or you're going to get frustrated, the author gives it to you. And I liked the explanations and the logic behind how the world got to this point.

Uglies reminds of The Giver, in that the people feel as though they are in a utopia, and the reader thinks this is great to start out with, and then it all starts falling a part at the seams once you begin really thinking about the plot. I like this book because it raises some of the same questions; how much control should we give the people in power, should you question the world around you, what's with all the rules, conformity, but it does it with the whole idea of receiving cosmetic surgery and hoverboards. The science and technology added to this story make it easier to swallow then The Giver.

5 out of 5 stars

Couldn't Put it Down September 1, 2007
31 out of 34 found this review helpful

I am a middle school English teacher and enjoy reading Young Adult literature. I also have seen the Twilight Zone episode, with a very similar story line, and it was an episode that has lingered hauntingly in my thoughts....so when I heard of this series, I was very eager to read it. I don't frequently write reviews, but I had to react to the negative reviews that I saw on this site. Though the story line may not be original, the author writes beautifully, using specific vocabulary and beautiful similes, without, at least in my opinion, holding back the story line. Tally is a well-developed character, thoughtful and fully understanding the consequences of her actions. I saved this book for a three-day weekend but read it all last night and this morning. I was unable to put it down and am planning to read all three books this week. I highly recommend this book for readers who enjoy thinking about what our future will be like. I plan to share the first chapter with my Junior Great Books class. I think it will be great fodder for intellectual discussion.

5 out of 5 stars

Uglies, anything but August 29, 2006
25 out of 27 found this review helpful

I bought this book on the recommendations I found online and I'm really glad I did. The synopsis has already been well described here. I just want to add my "thumbs WAAAY up" to all the other glowing reviews. As I read this book, I kept thinking of how the concept of beauty changes so much over time. I wonder what will be considered beautiful in 300 years (about the time this series is set). I was also wondering who got to decide what was beautiful when the operations started, and had it evolved over time. Interesting things to ponder as you read...but making you think is what really good fiction should do.

5 out of 5 stars

Great Book November 4, 2005
14 out of 24 found this review helpful

I bought this book because I had purchased the authors previous novels, both being in the "Midnighters" trilogy and enjoying them both very much. This was an amazing novel, you start off thinking that society has finally gotten its stuff together and created harmony. At the age of 16 you are given an operation that turns you from an "ugly" to a "pretty" and all the uglies want to to be one of the pretties.

Makes sense, I would hate having to be called "ugly" for my life. Then everything fall around the greatness of being a pretty. Tally the main character of the book runs into a person who becomes here best fried. Shay want to never have the pretty operation and runs a way to this place where everyone is ugly and lives like they did in the old times, which the people of that time are called "Rusties" as all the stuff they created has turned to rust or rubble.

Shay does run away to the "Smoke" and Tally is upset that she did not go along with her(a little), but then she is forced to go to the Smoke because of the other breed of people thata round besides the Pretties and Uglies, they are the "Specials" or Special Circumstances and they want to destroy the smoke and all places similar to it. Tally complies, because they say they will make her stay ugly forever, which is the most devastating thing possible in her mind, so she goes to spy and reveal the location of the Smoke.

Then she learns to love it, but eventually she does some tings which bring down the Smoke and lead her to becoming a pretty only as a chance to help the problem with a Pretties mind, which is VERY severe. Which leads directly into the second book "Pretties".

5 out of 5 stars

Pretty is as Pretty does. September 7, 2007
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

This a review for the audio book version of "Uglies" performed by Carine Montbertrand.

This is geared towards young adults, but believe me it's a book for any age. Scott Westerfeld is one of the few male authors out there who can successfully tell a story through young girl's eyes and get it right. This book is about a world divided into two parts, just as humanity is, ugly and pretty. Up until your 16th birthday you are considered an Ugly, you go to ugly schools, live in ugly dorms, reside in ugly city all the while dreaming of that one day when you will become pretty and get to live the good life in pretty town. Young girls and boys are told they are ugly by their parents and the government, they think they are too fat or skinny; they have big noses and squinty eyes. All they have to look forward too is that day when they turn sweet sixteen and get to shed their Ugly skins to be "normal" and pretty. The Pretties live in gorgeous buildings, throw parties all day; they seemingly have no worries and are always happy.

I know it seems just too literal, okay young people think they are ugly and when they "grow up" they will be able to do whatever they want, and pretty people always seem happier. It goes beyond that. Tally Youngblood is our heroine, her best friend Paris has been turned and she cannot wait to join him. She meets Shay and thus begins a quick friendship. Shay soon shows Tally another world, taking her to the "rusting ruins" on their hover boards (yes I said hover boards you back to the future freaks!) The ruins, are what is left of the "rusties" which you figure out are basically us, but so far gone and abandoned now its all being taken back into the earth, rusting. That world, the Uglies are told, had wars and famine and everyone was unhappy, so the scientist "cured" all that by mandating the surgery and therefore "saving" society.

Shay doesn't believe this is right, and tells Tally of another society, a secret one called the "Smokies" and she is joining them before turning 16. Tally is shocked! How could Shay WANT to stay ugly forever? Shay leaves, but not before asking Tally to go with her, but Tally doesn't want to be an ugly anymore...she wants to be happy so she stays, Shay does give her a map just in case she changes her mind. The government on the other hand connects Tally to the Smokies and blackmails her into finding Shay, if she doesn't she will stay Ugly forever.

I won't give everything away, but I will say that the rest involves Tally finding out who she truly is, and what she is capable of. You get to find out what the Pretties actually are, and why, and what exactly lies outside of Ugly and Pretty town. You also get to hear about the "Specials" which are Pretties but with deadly skills.

I cannot recommend this book enough, it's a quick read, its not Kierkegaard but its pretty darn fascinating nevertheless. The reader of this audiobook does an excellent job! I cannot wait to read the second in the series "Pretties".

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