By The Bookworm
The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn Pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.
Uglies is a novel set in the future, where your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from an 'Ugly' into a stunningly attractive 'Pretty'. The "Pretties" are then free to play and party, while the younger "Uglies" look on enviously and spend the time before their own transformations in plotting mischievous tricks against their elders.
Tally Youngblood is an Ugly, and is also one of the most mischievous; in just a few weeks Tally will be there, joining her friends. However, Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be Pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away to The Smoke (a rumoured settlement of rebels that haven't undergone the operation), Tally learns about a whole new side of the Pretty world - and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn Pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.
Uglies gives the audience an insight into what the world might come to, with the Media driving everyone to become thinner, taller, muscular and tanned, and the many different plastic surgeries you can undergo. Any young teenager can sympathise with Tally's character; the want to become attractive is something everyone experiences at some point in their lives, but this novel reminds the audiences (in a rather clichéd way, by introducing a boyfriend) that it truly is about what is on the inside, not the out.
Uglies also introduces us to the world where everyone looks, sounds and acts the same way would be like; where the Authorities/Government changes the way you think to suit their laws and ideals.
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I absolutely loved this book, and look forward to reading the sequels Pretties and Specials.
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