Book Review - Uglies

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You know, I think I read more YA fiction now than I did when I was in the YA age range (by that point I'd moved on to "adult" books.) I mean, I read Sweet Valley High and such, but why wasn't there YA fiction like this around when I was that age?

I guess it was so I could read it now.

Uglies takes place in a post-apocolyptic world where war and conflict has been eliminated. The small population goes through surgery to make everyone aesthetically pleasing, and somehow, this makes life better. Well, no, it's not quite that easy. Because people just don't seem the same once they become a "pretty". They seem to forget their old friends, and lose their old personalities. So finds Tally, when her best friend Peris turns pretty and seems to have left her friendship behind.

Tally has a few months to kill before her 16th birthday - the day of the operation - and befriends Shay, a fellow Ugly, waiting in the dorms with her to become what society means her to be. Only, she's not sure she wants to be pretty, or vapid, or dull. Instead, she as other ideas and Tally gets pulled into the mix, which includes the mysterious David, who tells tales of a world where no one is an Ugly, and no one is a Pretty, but everyone is beautiful.

This was an interesting, incredibly fast read. Two nights before bed and I was done. And I'm really drawn to the premise of this book, so I think I'll be starting the next one pretty shortly.

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