Uglies by Scott Westerfield

Uglies is one of the first Dystopian fiction novels I ever read. I remember reading Uglies in 7th grade, bringing it with me from class to class, sneaking in a few pages between periods. I was convinced that Uglies would be a movie in a few years. It had all the makings of a potential blockbuster: action, a disturbing world, a relatable main character. I still don't know why Uglies hasn't been made into a movie. There is a Dystopian craze in Hollywood. Divergent, The Maze Runner and The Hunger Games have all been made into movies. Why hasn't Uglies? I hope someone eventually picks it up, because Uglies has a lot of potential.

Uglies, the first in a trilogy by Scott Westerfield, follows Tally, a girl on the verge of turning sixteen. Sixteen is the age when everyone gets an operation to become breathtakingly beautiful. The operation reshapes uglies into entirely new people. Their bone structure is shaped to be more aesthetically pleasing, their hair and eyes are changed, they are given new skin.

(All of us would be considered uglies in Tally's world because we have never had their operation.)

Once an ugly undergoes the operation, she becomes a pretty and lives in Pretty Town, the side of the city where only pretties live and spend their time partying and purchasing whatever they desire. Once a pretty becomes middle-aged, they receive another operation, as well as a final operation once they become elderly.

Tally is extremely excited to undergo the operation, even when she meets Shay, a fellow ugly who criticizes the way pretties live and considers the operation to be losing an identity. Shay wants to live in the Smoke, a community of runaway uglies outside the city. One day, right before the operation, Shay runs away after trying to convince Tally to go with her. Tally is called to Special Circumstances and must choose between finding Shay or never having her operation. Tally decides to find her friend and turn her in to the city.

Once Tally agrees to go after Shay is when Uglies really jumps in to high gear. Tally finds it increasingly difficult to betray her friend once she gets to know the people of the Smoke, but she doesn't really understand that she is being used as a tool by the city. Tally makes for an interesting character because she is a very average girl. She is as desperate to become pretty as everyone else, and she is not a radical like Shay. She is shaped by the world she grew up in.

Often main characters in Dystopian fiction are outsiders who never felt like full participants in their worlds. Tally, much like Titus in Feed, is a believable inhabitant of her world. She has a game she plays in the beginning of the book that scans her face and allows her to make it pretty. She can change anything and everything about her face, and she does. She has dozens of pretty versions of her face saved. She obsesses about her ugliness constantly. She feels like a teenager with low-self esteem in a society that idolizes beauty. Seeing her own face blown up in size projected on the wall is enough to convince Tally to go find Shay. She can't bear to look at her own face any longer.

Uglies is a little different from many Dystopian novels as it deals with themes of beauty and excess rather than dictatorial leadership. The world of the book is not one in which the characters are abused or beaten down. Instead they are given absolutely everything they could ever want. It might even be easy for readers to imagine themselves in the world too. When we finally learn the secret about the pretty operations, some people might even find themselves wondering if it would still be worth it. Tally certainly wonders that herself.