Uglies

Among the books a friend lent me was the first in the Uglies triology. I sped through the first book, and was so excited after finishing it, that the next day we went around to the used bookstores in town until I got the rest of the trilogy and the follow up book. But I'll not get ahead of myself.

I think the first book, Uglies, is fantastic. I couldn't put it down. It is hard to describe without giving too much away, but I'll do my best. The story is set somewhere in the future where our own time is a distant, but not forgotten past. Someone is born as a littlie (which my mind always wants to read as "little"), then turn into an "ugly" as they hit puberty, where they stay until their sixteenth birthday when they have the operation to turn "pretty". We follow Tally, a soon-to-be sixteen-year-old, who can't wait to be a pretty, when it all goes wrong. She is an endearing protagonist. Tally isn't perfect, and through her mistakes we learn that the operation to turn everyone pretty, and level the playing field (so we don't judge people based on their looks), has far-reaching, and unexpected consequences. I like the way the author, Scott Westerfeld, describes the future. I can picture the world he has created, and also can imagine how the characters view our own time. The novel is fast-paced, intriguing and left me salivating for the next book.