Books are the transportation system into another world, when in those worlds you meet exciting new people, you are thrown into strange circumstances, and every danger in the book is an immediate hazard to yourself. Choosing a book can be a huge decision because you’re investing precious time to meet the main character and learning the culture of the people, and you don’t want to be the misfit in this new and exciting place. When reading the book Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld, I immediately bonded with the main character, Tally. Tally and I waited anxiously for our operation to turn pretty, we invited another ugly, Shay, to become our friend and much more. Uglies makes you feel welcome to stay in the dystopian future world of Uglyville, despite it’s less than appealing name.


Uglies is a brilliant book, full of many plot twists, well written, believable characters and a surprising ending. Tally Youngblood, the protagonist, is a sixteen year old girl who wants nothing more than to become pretty. The views of the people of the future are that the human body is very ugly, and the only way to fix this deformed look is by an operation. Before the operation you are considered an ugly, after you are considered a pretty. Almost everyone living in Uglyville wants to become a pretty, including Tally, but there is the exception every so often. This year’s exception is called Shay, the same Shay that has just become friends with Tally. When Shay runs away to some place she calls the Smoke, Tally has to make a life changing decision, to go with her friend and never become pretty or stay and become pretty, but never see her friend again. Those are the choices she thinks she thinks she has, but it all changes when a breathtakingly beautiful, yet cold and terrifying pretty, called Dr. Cable, offers Tally another choice, one that could solve all of her problems, the choice to reveal the Smoke to her to evacuate all of the citizens out of their homes and back to Uglyville to get the operation, also along with the citizens of the Smoke, Tally herself would become pretty. The catch is if Tally doesn’t agree to do this she will never become pretty. Tally has the most important decision of her life lying ahead of her, one choice to decide her entire future. What Tally picks and the consequences of her decision shocked me and that’s the point where I really started to fall in love with the book.

It’s not hard to see that I am head over heels for this book. The book was extremely well written; the whole time I read the book I felt all of Tally’s emotions as if they were my own. The book was neither too hard to read or too easy. The author, Scott Westerfeld, created realistic characters. The characters aren’t amazing, they aren’t good at everything and they have their flaws, but they also aren’t dull, they aren’t just flaws and they are great at certain things. The characters are human, and they are fantastic. Another reason this book is great is some of the controversial conflicts brought up. Even though the book is set in the future, many conflicts of today are brought up. Some topics brought up are our way of getting energy and how it effects the environment, our questionable idols and our lack of acceptance. Westerfeld addresses these touchy topics with care, yet he puts enough of his opinion into it that it would even get the most stubborn person to question their beliefs. I would recommend this book to everyone because of these reasons. Many people think that Uglies is just a book for teenage girls, but I can guarantee that any teenage girl that has read the book will tell you that this book can be enjoyed by everyone. Uglies is a bunch of different genres rolled into one, yet it isn’t overwhelming or cheesy. Genres include science fiction, action, adventure, romance, teen issues and even suspense. Men, women, teens, children, and even the elderly will find at least one of those genres intriguing. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves to read and even those who do not like to read.

Uglies is magnetic with its exciting plot, collection of genres and clever ways to deal with problems. This book is a ticket to a well-deserved vacation, a vacation full of excitement, new technology, suspense, evil officials and heroic protagonists. This book can raise the imagination to a new level; it can plant vivid new ideas into the mind. As one of the main characters, Shay, says, “Come on. I’ve been wanting to show you this since we met.”