Uglies

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Somehow I missed out when the tweens started requesting Uglies a few years ago. Or maybe they didn't request it and I didn't miss anything. But I remember when they started requesting Pretties. I might have mistakenly linked it with the Cliques series in my mind. My judgemental mind automatically discounted it as Chick-Lit.

It won the Abraham Lincoln Award in 2007 and I trudged down to Young Adult to check it out – physically. Was I ever in for a surprise. Dystopian Literature! Definitely up my alley and anyone else's who likes Hunger Games, City of Ember, Gregor the Overlander,and The Giver. I could name more!

It still seemed like a guilty pleasure and the concept is not new. In order to make society more equitable, we must make everyone more alike. In this case, the plastic surgeons will make everyone pretty at the age of sixteen. And it's mandatory.

Don't think we make everyone pretty in order to feel good about ourselves and promote higher self-esteem. Oh no! It is scientifically proven through genetics and evolution that large eyes, full lips, average height and a healthy body weight are necessary to survival. Want proof? Take a look at a New Pretty … gaze into their large eyes … see their vulnerability … don't you want to protect them?

So who are the Uglies? Kids ages twelve to fifteen. Those hormones – I tell you! They make you all arms and legs and gangley, not too mention awkward. Don't even get me started on the pimples. Hideous! No one is called by their given name. You are made to feel ugly through your nickname … Squint, Skinny, Nose. And you are all housed together in dorms away from your Pretty parents and New Pretties.

While the Uglies are playing tricks on each other, their teachers, their elders and the New Uglies; while the Uglies are dreaming about what they will look like when they are Pretty too, new New Pretties are partying hard without a care in the world and not a backward thought for their old ugly friends. Life is good. Life is easy. Life is pretty.

Heroine Tally misses her best friend and newly made Pretty. She expected him to visit or call or something. She is a young sixteen and the last of her class. She is lonely until she meets Shay who shares her birthday. Shay is different. A rebel, like Tally, she doesn't sneak into Pretty Town to watch the New Pretties. Shay sneaks into the Rusty ruins. Shay doesn't want to be Pretty. Shay wants to join fabled Rebel Uglies in "The Smoke". And Shay wants Tally to join her.

Tally wants to be Pretty more than she wants follow her new best friend, but when Shay disappears, Special Circumstances steps in and offers her an ultimatum – lead them to Shay or stay Ugly forever.

The cliffhanger ROCKS!