Book Review - Specials

Specials by Scott Westerfeld
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Third in the "Uglies" saga, Specials picks up not long after the ending of "Pretties", with Tally back in the city, under the eye - and hands - of the devious Dr. Cable, who is determined to turn her into one of the unique breed of young Special Circumstances agents called "Cutters", run by Tally's friend Shay.

While I liked Specials much better than Pretties, I didn't like it nearly as well as Uglies. This is another super-fast read, finished in two reading sessions for me, and it's quick moving, with more action than the previous books. We've gotten about as far in character development as we were going to get in the series, and there aren't any significant new characters introduced here. In fact, be prepared to say goodbye to one significant character. Usually this would make me cry, but the way it was handled made it almost emotionless for me, as it had grown pretty inevitable. Mostly, Specials is about capers (tricks) and chases, war (yes, really, war!) and Tally's adjustment to her new "Special" status.

The book seemed to wrap up just about every dangling story line you can imagine, which makes me really wonder about the existence of "Extras", the next book in the series. It almost seems (I haven't looked it up to be certain) that this was meant to be a trilogy and the last book was tacked on to capitalize on the success of the others. Truly, I'm considering not reading the last book, because I like the way things were tied up, and don't necessarily want to see more icky things happen to poor Tally, who has really been through the ringer in this series.

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