From the Bookshelf of YAholics Anonymous!…

Uglies (Uglies, #1)

Scott Westerfeld

Start date: September 1, 2013

Finish date: September 30, 2013

Discussion: Group Read

Why we're reading this: Dystopian BotM
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What Members Thought

Jun 16, 2012 Manda rated it liked it · review of another edition

In Tally's world once you turn sixteen you undergo an operation that turns you from an Ugly to a Pretty which is what Tally really wants as she hates being an Ugly. When you’re a pretty you’re completely transformed and every little flaw you have had as an ugly is removed making you pretty and perfect. Then you get to spend your days having fun and partying with all the other Pretties in New Pretty town. Tally wants all of this but then she meets a new friend and when that friend runs away Tally In Tally's world once you turn sixteen you undergo an operation that turns you from an Ugly to a Pretty which is what Tally really wants as she hates being an Ugly. When you’re a pretty you’re completely transformed and every little flaw you have had as an ugly is removed making you pretty and perfect. Then you get to spend your days having fun and partying with all the other Pretties in New Pretty town. Tally wants all of this but then she meets a new friend and when that friend runs away Tally is given an ultimatum: turn her friend in or never become pretty. So Tally makes a choice and the choice she makes changes her world completely.

I’ve been hoping to finish this book before the start of the weekend as I usually see my boyfriend during the weekends and never get much done while around him if you know what I mean. It helped me that Uglies was such a page turner more for the imagination and the creativeness which had gone into the storyline then because the storyline gripped me. I liked the book and it did keep me reading but to me it didn’t feel very dystopian until halfway through the book and a portion of the book I found boring to read and would have put it down and stopped reading if it wasn’t for the need to know what happens. Don’t listen to me though only just got back into reading after a long absence.

For me in a way Uglies seemed kind of wrong that people who had physical features that made that person individual and different would be labelled an “Ugly” especially as it is a young adult’s book as most young people are at that stage in life when they are all conscious about their looks and others. I could be reading too much in to this but I just felt the whole being an ugly because your eyes were too large or too small was kind of wrong to put into a young adult’s novel.

I gave Uglies three stars because although I liked it there were bits about the book I didn’t like as much as others and the end had a sort of anti-climax. As things were building up I expected something to go terribly wrong but it didn’t leaving the book with an ending that didn’t really suit the build up the author had created up until that moment. So although I like and dislike parts of this book, I still want to read the others because I want to read the book about the specials which is the third book and reading them out of order would just be plain wrong.

So final word: Uglies, you were good but you could have been so much better.
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