Uglies Book Review

 

           Uglies begins with Tally Youngblood waiting to turn sixteen. Tally's best friend, Peris,  has just been turned into a pretty, which is what they call you after you get a surgery that makes you supermodel beautiful. Tally, attempting to cheer herself up goes tricking, or pranking, in New Pretty Town, which is where you live right after you become pretty. While in New Pretty Town Tally meets another ugly, Shay, while trying not to get caught by the wardens. Shay and Tally become best friends and Shay reveals to Tally that she has had doubts about this "perfect" society and that she is running away to a breakaway community in the wilderness called The Smoke. After Shay runs away Tally turns sixteen, but is not allowed to become pretty until she finds the Smoke for the authorities, which are called Special Circumstances. Tally goes on a journey to find the Smoke and while there discovers that the bubble head, or pretty, operation gives you lesions in your brain to help keep you peaceful, under control, and from not destroying the environment. Tally attempts to destroy the tracker that Special Circumstances gave her by throwing it into a fire, but when she does, it sends a signal to the authorities that results in the Smoke being destroyed. Tally escapes the destruction of the Smoke, but after agreeing  to take part in an experiment by the Smokies to remove the lesions, becomes pretty.

           I think the theme of the book is that real beauty comes from creative thinking. Everyone in this book's society is "beautiful", but they are not really people that I would want to spend time with, since due to the lesions they all think basically the same. In Uglies, there is a society devoted to making everyone look similar, or the "morphological average". I think that the brain lesions are the author's exaggerated  way of saying that if everyone thinks the same, then there will be less different, dissident, and independent ways of thinking. The authorities in this book justify doing this to people because they say it is the only way to keep from destroying the environment again. I think that it is a good thing to leave nature untouched, but I also think that people deserve to think clearly.

           This book touches on many present day issues, with many people struggling with their self-esteem. Most media emphasizes the message that you have to look a certain way, dress a certain way, and if you don't do that you are a loser, an outcast. In this book the people are raised form birth to think that until they get the surgery they're ugly. Just the fact that they call themselves "uglys" shows that they have been conditioned to think that way. The uglys call each other nicknames based on negative aspects of their personal appearance like,"skinny", "pig eyes", and "fatty".  I think that instead of making everyone look the same so that no one gets picked on, we should instead help to change the collective attitude towards personal appearance.

           I think the reason this book appealed to me was because of the science fiction, the Orwellian aspect of the authorities, and the interesting version of utopia that it presents. I have always been interested in issues regarding the freedom of speech, so this book with its issues regarding the freedom of thinking really grabbed me. I would definitely recommend this book to other people, in fact after I read the first book I went out and read the other two books in the trilogy! I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys science fiction and anyone who likes a thought provoking and interesting read. I really enjoyed reading Uglies.         

I got this picture from here