YA
Westerfeld, Scott. 2005. UGLIES. New York: Simon Pulse. ISBN 9780689865381
PLOT SUMMARY - ANALYSIS
This novel sets up a city where at the magic age of sixteen, every citizen has an operation to make them look pretty. The operation has a leveling effect on this closed society where each member is made to look the same “amount of pretty.” This futuristic view of the world when oil was a staple and metal was for buildings gives readers interesting ethical discussion topics from decimating the wood in the forests to de-valuing careers, and the intellectual and physical price of beauty.
Readers meet Tally’s character as she is visiting New Pretty Town, where - after the operation, the “pretties” live in isolation. This society has no traditional parental roles with students living in dormitories until time for their surgery. There are many rules, regulations, and monitoring of the citizens including tracking rings, futuristic gadgets, cars, and hoverboards for traveling.
Tally meets Shay who is defiant of the rules of the society and wishes not to become a pretty by running away. Shay and Tally’s relationship becomes close and Tally is caught in a scheme to bring Shay back for her operation. Tally encounters the division of Special Circumstances which serves as a governing agency holding a secret involved in the operations.
Comparisons of a highly technical world of the New Pretty Town versus a highly agricultural, land-based life in the Smoke lets the reader reflects on resource use and current lifestyles.
Westerfeld has backed up his created culture with sufficient anthropological grounding for credibility (“The big eyes and lips said: I’m young and vulnerable, I can’t hurt you, and you want to protect me. And the rest said: I’m healthy, I won’t make you sick”), and the usual pleasures are present in the classic combat between the dark authoritarian underside of apparent utopia and the outsiders whose greater understanding threatens the protected world. (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, February 2005 (Vol. 58, No. 6)) When Tally has been black-mailed by Special Circumstances to find and return Shay, Tally feels the heaviness of betrayal when she describes herself in the text. “She thought of the orchids spreading across the plains below, choking the life out of other plants, out of the soil itself, selfish and unstoppable. Tally Youngblood was a weed. And, unlike the orchids, she wasn’t even a pretty one” (page 244).
Tally goes on a journey alone to find Shay and encounters many circumstances which are fearful and help her find her own strength to overcome the situation. When Tally finds the Smoke, she meets David and his parents, who were doctors in New Pretty Town. She discovers that she loves David and she becomes responsible for the collapse of the Smoke. As Tally is trying to repair damage done by her betrayal of the Smoke and Shay’s surgery, she commits to surgery herself. The book ends with a cliffhanger urging the reader to follow the author through the final two books in the series.
REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Booklist starred 03/15/05
Teacher Librarian 10/01/05
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books 02/01/05
Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) 06/01/05
Kirkus Review starred 02/12/05
Wilson’s Junior High School 01/09/10
School Library Journal starred 03/01/05
Wilson’s Senior High School 10/01/07
CONNECTIONS
Westerfeld, Scott. 2007. PRETTIES. Waterville, Me: Thorndike Press. ISBN 9780786296996
· Partner this book as the sequel
Levine, Gail Carson. 2006. FAIREST. New York, NY: HarperCollins. ISBN 9780060734084
· Partner this book in discussing beauty and fitting into society
Reeve, Philip. 2003. MORTAL ENGINES: A NOVEL. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 9780060082079
· Partner this book as another look at a world in the future when cities and civilizations are being recycled, re-built, and re-thought.
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