Book Review: "Uglies" by Scott Westerfeld

I've actually read 4 books since the last time I wrote one of these but since I only had them in Kindle form, for one reason or another I didn't feel much like talking about them. I haven't read any bad books lately, but I have read some that were kind of disappointing and "Uglies" was one of those. I'll get to why I feel that way in a bit but for now, here is the original cover from 2005.

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This is a dystopian book, and that is my favorite type of book ever.

dystopian: an imagined world or society in which people lead dehumanized, fearful lives

There are plenty of examples of this but for something that people might be more familiar with Blade Runner, The Hunger Games, and 12 Monkeys are all examples of dystopian stories.

Uglies has the usual technology resulted in the downfall of humanity sort of edge to it, but they don't really focus on that a great deal at the start, instead they focus on how society is hyper-focused on appearance and everyone is separated into two different parts, the "uglies" and the "pretties."

Uglies are normal humans that are defined by the normal birth characteristics and pretties are surgically modified people that are meant to be absolute perfection. All uglies graduate to being pretties at age 16 but up to that point the uglies live in awe of the pretties and aren't so much as even allowed into the pretties parts of society. The uglies have to watch from across the river as the pretties have constant parties and live lives of opulence and the uglies go to school and grow up being educated about how being non-pretty is a terrible thing. Basically everyone aspires for very little else other than to become a pretty. Thankfully, for the society that exists, every person is granted permission to become and pretty on their 16th birthday.

Our main character is "Tally" and she is lamenting the fact that her best childhood friend turned 16 a while before her and now she is still in the ugly part of town counting down the days before she gets to go over to join "Peris" (the male friend) on her very late birthday in September. One day she sneaks over to the pretty part of town and is evading security as a masquerade of sorts and is able to track him down. She is a bit surprised when Peris isn't very excited to see her at all and doesn't seem himself. Peris does remember her but encourages her to get out of there and look forward to the day when she is a Pretty, but to not stay or try to return before that day.

Tally makes her way back to the "ugly" part of town and is saddened by this, but still is in awe at how beautiful every single person was on the other side. They don't work to remain pretty, the surgery has seen to it that they will remain this way for many years and their are subsequent surgical procedures to make this remain true for most of their lives as well. She can't make much sense out of her BFF treating her like a stranger though. She then meets another ugly named Shay who is exactly the same age as Tally and is a rebellious teenager who as they get to know one another better, it is revealed to Tally that Shay wants to clap back at the government and has no intention of ever getting the "pretty surgery" and instead is going to escape to this hidden community that is far from the city they both grew up in known as "Smoke."

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She eventually makes it to Smoke and meets up with Shay and it is here that she discovers some dark secrets about the world and what it truly means to be a pretty or an ugly.

This is also where the book kind of lost me because it turned into a teenage love story / Hunger Games story instead of the very interesting and thought-provoking tale that was somewhat reflective of the ever-increasingly vain society that the world is quickly becoming in real life.

The procedures that can be done in real life for you and I right now are ones that are being pushed on people that are younger and younger to the point now where people in their 20's are getting botox so that they never develop wrinkles. In some societies it is just considered normal to vastly overhaul what you look like such as is the case in South Korea, where it is reported that nearly 50% of all college-age women have had some form of cosmetic surgery. Being normal looking in these societies has become increasingly taboo to the point where to have a nose job or a boob job is just par for the course and it is kind of expected of you.

*Uglies" takes it much further in that it is a government mandated thing and is taught from a very young age that the children should aspire to stop being an ugly at the earliest opportunity. The age of 16 was chosen because it is the "safest" time but as we read on in the book, there are other, more nefarious reasons for having chose this age.

I found the first 1/3 of the book to be very thought-provoking and almost philosophical, especially when you consider that it was written nearly 20 years ago before many of today's procedures were truly mastered. Many would say that author Scott Westerfeld was a bit of a visionary or a soothsayer for being able to somewhat predict how cosmetic surgery would become so common the way that it has become today. The way in which everyone in the book is very much looking forward to the day that they get to become pretty and how once they are pretties, they rarely want to have anything to do with uglies anymore, even if they were past friends or even family members.

At first it seemed interesting but then the story just kind of devolves into a "teenagers take charge" sort of bullshit that is just too common and trite in stories and especially films in the past.

There was a film made by the way, and like most people I never even heard that it happened. It was almost universally trash-talked and apparently is really bad for a lot of reasons.

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one of the main reasons why the film gets panned is because of things that must have been tough to work out such as making the pretties so much better looking than the uglies, which well, they just aren't. One thing I read over and over again is that the film was injected with modern-day politics about transgender issues and DEI stuff and while I don't have a lot to do with that in my own life, I can see how that would have pissed some people off.

I haven't seen it and have no intention of doing so either so it doesn't really matter to me.

The book on the other hand was really easy to read and it seems as though it was written for a Harry Potter type of audience or perhaps a bit older like late teens. It isn't a short book but it also isn't terribly long. At 425 pages of around 12 point font I would say it is rather average as far as length is concerned

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Of course I wasn't reading a physical book I was reading a Kindle version of it on my 2nd edition Kindle that is 20 years old but still going strong! No backlight on my tablet baby!

I feel as though the author had a very strong story going here but it kind of got out of hand from being a strong dystopian tale to turning into a fast-paced teenage bad-ass girl boss action something or other that was likely always intended to be a film and alas, it has become one. A wildly unpopular one that Netflix refuses to divulge the financial statistic on. There are also 2 more books in the series entitled "Pretties" and "Sepcials" and you get to briefly meet them in the first book, should you decide to read it.

Despite the fact that I didn't like how the book turned away from being a thought-provoking reflection of society and instead became the Hunger Games or even worse Divergent, I still think that the book is worth reading because it is so easy to understand and get though and for the most part is is actually pretty good and there are times where you can kind of relate to why the Pretties are trying to protect their society and why the overlords would prefer to have everyone be "pretties."

There is no competition for who is best looking when everyone is best looking and a lot of confrontations are avoided in life in general. One only need to look at hidden camera reflection of men and women reacting to the presence of a very attractive person nearby them and their group to understand where this is coming from. In the absence of jealousy society can thrive by being able to focus on other more important things.

I in a micro way relate this to when I attended private school and everyone was forced to wear the same things with no exceptions. If you turned up wearing Air Jordans they would be taken off of you. You had to wear the same boring crap that everyone else was wearing. When they removed the stress of trying to be pretty, everyone could not focus on learning and well, I'll say that it really worked.

So by making everyone Pretty, there was no more competition anymore and the Pretties all got along and the progression of the society was guaranteed. Until you find out the dark secrets as to how this is possible.

I would read this book if I were you even if you are not a teenager, but once you get to the kind of silly action sequences that have an obvious end result, you can just kind of skip them IMO. The overall message still gets through but unfortunately was muddled down by what appears to the the author's intent to get this made into a film or series and that perhaps was the goal all the way from the start.

It is definitely not a great book of the dystopian sense the way that Handmaid's Tale, 1984, or Fahrenheit 451 is though. Not even close. It is written with very easy to comprehend words though and I believe since it was marketed towards kids in middle school 10-15 years of age, that seems about correct.

Because of my current injury I was able to finish reading this book in just a couple of days but it also has short chapters so you can jump in and out in a number of ways. It also isn't a terribly complicated story with very few meaningful characters so if you do put it down for a while and then come back, you are not going to be completely confused.

This book is bound to be available in nearly every library in American and these means you can get it for free... Im still envious about this one aspect of USA... that and Taco Bell.

So if Hunger Games was your think like it was mine, get out there and request a copy of Uglies from your local library. I bet you end up being reasonably entertained and if not, at least it wont take long for you to finish it and can then write a scathing review of your own.

Who better to teach you about pretty and ugly than my doggo Nadi, who is a delightful mixture of both!