Uglies by Scott Westerfield is a dystopian that follows a girl named Tally Youngblood in a world that revolves around beauty and peer pressure. In Uglyville, everyone undergoes a procedure upon their sixteenth birthday to become “pretty”, which is essentially a cosmetic surgery that imbues traits of conventional attractiveness into the teenagers. Tally can’t wait for her sixteenth birthday because it means that she’ll get a chance to go to New Pretty Town and join her friend, who became “pretty” before the start of the story. However, everything changes when she meets Shay, a girl who doesn’t accept the way things are in Uglyville. When her new friend escapes, Tally is blackmailed into looking for her, but when she does, she discovers that things aren’t as perfect as they seem in New Pretty Town…
I gave this book 2 stars because despite the hype, it really wasn’t worth reading. Perhaps the only redeeming thing about this book was the theme. I appreciated the dystopia centered around beauty standards and the issues with body image because I don’t see that very often in science fiction, so reading this was refreshing. That’s where the positives ended, though.
First, Tally Youngblood was a boring protagonist up until the end. Her thoughts and dialogue were typical for any hero character. She had no unique or particularly redeeming qualities. In fact, she could be any other citizen of Uglyville had it not been for a boy. Yes, that’s right, the main character changes her whole perspective and personality for a boy. Case-in-point, David was boring too. Neither of them had any unique qualities besides the fact that they were the main characters. The only character I appreciated was Shay, but even she became nothing but a love triangle rival.
Another thing I hated was the plot. It was incredibly slow. I fell asleep while I was reading it (that’s not even an exaggeration, someone had to wake me up). Also, all the so-called plot twists were obvious from the beginning. I was surprised that Tally took so long to figure it out. Finally, the worldbuilding left a lot to be desired. I mean, come on, Uglyville? Besides that, we don’t get a lot of information about their world other than what’s happening in that one city and its surrounding forests. While some of the technology was cool, none of it was new or unexpected. I finished this book out of a sense of honor, but refuse to read the other books. Overall, I don’t recommend Uglies, but if you liked Matched by Allyson Braithewaite Condie, Slated by Terri Terry, or The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau, then you might enjoy this book.