a book review.

Summer has long been the time that I read books. I love to devour a whole book (if its good) in a day or two, and summer is the only time of year that I can actually do such a thing. My latest read was Uglies by Scott Westerfield. This juicy young adult novel is the first in a series of three, and thank goodness it has two more because I couldn’t put it down.

The central theme of Uglies is a coming of age story in a world where average is ugly and at 16 you get a surgical transformation to make you exceptionally beautiful. The best thing? No one is excluded. Tally, the heroine, is only days from this exciting fate, when her future is turned upside down when she befriends Shay. Shay is planning to run and stay an “ugly” and lets Tally in on her plan. On the day of her own surgery, Tally is faced with the hardest decision of her life, betray Shay or stay an ugly forever. The decision she makes leads her on a journey to the mysterious Smoke where everyone is an ugly. At the Smoke, Tally discovers a vicious truth about the transformation to become a “pretty,” that makes her question the motives of the authorities and what she wants in her own future.

Uglies brings to light many questions about the humanity of our present day and Westerfield poses a possible answer in the society he creates, where superficial equality is the law of the land. What kept me reading was the underlying hints as to what lead to this outwardly beautiful society, flawed in its apparent vapidness, and Tally’s struggle to decide at what cost is this beauty not worth it anymore. Westerfield answers these questions while simultaneously bringing the reader along on a fast paced adventure complete with high-tech toys and a love story that highlights the beauty that is found in the originality of being average.

Keep on the look out for the review of the sequel Pretties (Uglies Trilogy, Book 2) because if its anything like Uglies I’m sure Westerfield won’t disappoint.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 5:24 am and is filed under Children's Books, Young Adult. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.