Okay... I struggled with rating this book because for me it didn't do much. It was really slow in the middle and I had trouble believing the main character's change of values. It was abrupt and was not presented in a believable manner. For me, it was more of a two than a four. But then I'm not the book's target audience.

My eleven year-old son read it after me and loved it. Even though the main character was a girl ("ew, Mom"), he got the point that the author was trying to make that beauty is only skin deep. It made him feel better about himself (he's at the gawky stage and thinks he's unattractive) for being sharp and witty. Also, the setting interested him. This was his first negative utopian novel and now he's fascinated with the genre. Last week he read Fahrenheit 451 (loved it), and now he's trying to read Brave New World.

So, if you're reading this as an adult for yourself, you might be disappointed. But for the middle-school crowd, it's a solid book with a good message, and it might open the door for the better books of the genre.