Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Westerfeld, Scott.  Uglies.

Simon Pulse; 2005,

ISBN: 0689865384.

Reader’s Annotation

If she wants to have the operation to become pretty (and she's been waiting for it for fifteen year), Tally Youngblood must make the choice of whether or not she will betray her friends--or risk being a social pariahby remaining ugly forever.

Plot Summary

Tally Youngblood is fifteen, and is ugly.  Actually, everyone is considered ugly in Tally’s society until they are sixteen, and undergo an operation to make them pretty.  Tally especially misses her friend Perris who turned sixteen, and now lives in Pretty Town across the river.  When Tally sneaks over to see Perris, to her dismay, he tells Tally that he doesn’t want to see her again until she’s pretty.  Tally meets another ugly out sneaking around—a fellow ugly named Shay.  When she and Shay discover that they share the same birthday and the same adventurous spirit, they become best friends.  However, after showing Tally how to ride a hover board, and how to sneak over to the Rusty Ruins, Shay gradually reveals that she does not want to become pretty.  Just before their birthday, Shay disappears, leaving a cryptic message for Tally if she wants to follow her.  But Tally still wants to be pretty.  On her birthday, she’s ready for her operation.  When she’s picked up, though, she finds herself not at the hospital, but at the headquarters of the ominous Special Circumstances forces.  There Tally’s informed that before she will be allowed to turn pretty, she must follow after Shay, find her way through the wilderness to the secret location (known as the Smoke) of runaways.  Carrying a tracking beacon, Tally must signal the location once she’s there.  If she refuses she will remain ugly forever.  Tally does find her way there, and meets up with Shay and David, a free-born young man who guides runaways to the Smoke.  Tally puts off signaling Special Circumstances, and come to have feelings for David.  She learns from David’s scientist parents that the operation to become pretty creates brain lesions that affect a person’s behavior, making them docile and shallow.  Finally, she tries to destroy the beacon, only to find out later that the beacon is rigged to automatically activate if anyone tries to destroy it.  That means that Special Circumstances is on the way—and it’s because of Tally.

Critical Evaluation

Scott Westerfeld creates a dystopian world in such simple and clear detail, that it seems entirely plausible.  Set in what was once the United States, places like the Rusty Ruins give testament to how human civilization got technologically carried away, and was eventually destroyed.  Besides the more obvious themes of what constitute real beauty, Westerfeld touches on themes of environmentalism and loyalty to friends.  Bearing similarities to Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy, and even to the 1970s movie Logan’s Run, Uglies is book 1 of a series.  These all examine the meaning of true freedom and to what extent government plays a part in controlling our lives.

     

Information about the Author

Born in Texas in 1963, Scott Westerfeld is the award-winning science fiction author of Evolution's Darling, So Yesterday and the The Secret Hour.  Westerfeld now divides his time between New York and Sydney, Australia.  For more information about Scott Westerfeld, go to his blog at: Scott Westerfeld

Genre

Science Fiction

Romance

Curriculum Tie-ins

None

Booktalk  Ideas

1. Describe how the concepts of “pretty” and “ugly” in the novel compare to our own concepts today.
2. If you had the choice, would you want to become pretty?

Reading level/Interest age

Young Adult (Grade 10+)

Challenge Issues/Challenge Response Ideas

None

Why I included this work

Uglies was named as "Best Books for Young Adults" 2006 by the American Library Association

Great Quote from the Book:

"I can't imagine anything worse than being required to have fun."