Uglies

For this week’s Top Trending: Dystopian YA Lit, I read The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. I have really mixed  feelings about this book. At the beginning I found it rather boring and difficult to get through. There were parts that were interesting, but definite parts that were not. However, by the end I could not put the book down. I enjoyed the ending and look forward to after this semester when I can read the next book in the series.

The Uglies takes place in a world where everyone is considered ugly until they reach their 16^th birthday and have massive amounts of cosmetic surgery (and possibly another secret brain-washing implant) to achieve society’s idea of ‘pretty’. The “pretties” and the “uglies” live in separate parts of the city and have little interaction with each other. What happens if you don’t want to have the surgery or live in the ‘perfect’ world? What will the authorities do to protect their secret?

In class people criticized the book for not being believable, but I do not think that it is a fair criticism because it is dystopian and books are not always realistic. Many people enjoy Harry Potter and Twilight, but neither of those is exactly mirroring reality!

I also think that this book is similar to The Outsiders, in fact I recommended it
to someone who’s daughter loved The Outsiders. It has a similar feeling, but I actually enjoyed it more. The book is one of four in the series, complemented by The Pretties, The Specials, and Bogus to Bubbly.

Scott Westerfeld has also written many other books, for a list or more about him take a look at his blog...