Review: Uglies

By: Scott Westerfeld
Published: February 2005 by Simon & Schuster
Format: Paperback, 424 pages
First Reviewed: January 2011
Buy: Barnes & Noble//Books-A-Million//Amazon//Book Depository
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In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is ugly.

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.
But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Rating: 3/5

I'm going to be honest and say that no matter how many people have told me to read this book, I still wasn't overly excited to dive into it. Probably because I'm not one for futuristic dystopians. I figured I was going to like it, but it did take me a few pages to get into. But I was right about it not being for me.

The setting felt overdone, for the most part. It was described okay, but I never truly felt like I was there. However, that may have something to do with me not being one for futuristic setups.

In the beginning, I wasn't too sure how I was going to like the characters. Though, Tally and others developed well throughout this, and I did like them, I didn't love them as I felt I should have. For some reason, I felt a little something missing from them. I could never put my finger on it, but it just kept me a tad bit disconnected from them at times. Overall, they were just okay. I didn't care for them too much, but I didn't dislike them.

Maybe it's just me, but the writing style made the story hard to read. I just couldn't get into Westerfeld's style. It wasn't bad, but it just didn't sit well with me, and I didn't much care for his character and plot building. The writing was just okay, but it didn't blow me out of the water.

I didn't care too much for the plot. There was some good action and some good storyline, but it felt rushed in places and too slow in others. It was creative, but just not for me.

This is completely random and just a personal thing, but I can't stand the name Shay in a book (not in real life). Don't ask me why, I don't know. It just drove me nuts. Ha!

Okay. Just okay. Worth the read, definitely, though.