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Just before their sixteenth birthdays, when they will will be transformed into beauties whose only job is to have a great time, Tally's best friend runs away and Tally must find her and turn her in, or never become pretty at all.
KamTonnes: Uglies and The Giver both portray societies that limit conflict by having very specific rules, roles, and expectations for everyone. Also, in both stories, the main characters slowly start to question the values of their respective communities.
kqueue: Another story about a 'perfect' society that is deeply flawed once you look beneath the surface. Both feature strong heroines who fight against the powers in control, and both have themes of independence and free will.
flemmily: Very similar heroines in similarly closed-off, oppressive worlds. Similar emphasis on an unknown "outside." Similar environmental emphasis, although Westerfeld focuses more on nature, whereas Snyder deals more with issues of population control.
LauraT81: Very similar dystopian societies where an operation is meant to subdue the members.
BookshelfMonstrosity: In these intense dystopian novels, teenage girls start to question the life-changing operation their oppressive government mandates for teens. Both girls redefine their values and grapple with the possibility of escaping to a rebellious colony in the wilderness.… (more)
KingRat: The White Mountains contains issues similar to those of Uglies: secret control of a society, "mind control", induction into that society, and rebellion against it while pretending to be a member. There are obvious major differences too. Still, enough similarities in style and substance that I suspect people who enjoy one will enjoy the other.… (more)
terriko: Great teen fiction! Gamers posits a world where everyone competes using games to define their future, while Uglies posits a world where everyone becomes pretty at 16. While these are pretty different worlds, both books chronicle stories of heroines not going quite where their society expects them to go...… (more)
2Mu: Similar theme: A girl lives in a brainwashing, conformist society. A group of rebels knows the truth and is trying to break the control of those in power. The girl must choose between what she's been raised to think and the people she cares about/what she knows to be true.… (more)
Tally Youngblood is an Ugly, just a normal teen in a segregated society, killing time and pulling pranks until her 16th birthday when she can finally get the operation to become Pretty and move to New Pretty Town. She makes friends with Shay, another elder Ugly, who tells her a startling secret - she’s going to run away before her birthday and refuse to get the operation. Tally refuses to go with her, and then on her birthday instead of getting the operation she’s brought before the secret police and given an ultimatum - locate Shay and the encampment of outsiders she escaped to, or stay Ugly forever.
I originally read this book in 2012 when I was steeped in teen girl dystopias and I did not appreciate it much. With some distance I enjoyed it more. The writing is more juvenile than I would expect from YA today, and it feels derivative until I remind myself that it came out a full 3 years before The Hunger Games. Tally feels unique - until almost the halfway point she is acting on behalf of both the authoritarian government and her own desires. Shay is the more common dystopia heroine, but viewing the story from Tally’s perspective feels more realistic. It takes quite a bit of convincing to get her to turn against the status quo, which I find more inspirational than a protagonist who knows the right thing to do from the start.
I’m glad I revisited this book and I plan to keep reading. I’m very intrigued that Westerfeld decided to pick this series back up after more than a decade and I can’t wait to get to the newer books. It's worth noting that Tally and Shay are definitely queer-coded, though I can't tell if it's intentional or not. They clearly make each other feel real feelings, and David has a real "him??" quality. (Every time Tally said his name it reminded me of David and his sister Alexis from Schitt's Creek.) I really hope the author goes somewhere with it.
Emily Tremaine is a perfectly good narrator. I appreciated that she didn't try different voices for the different characters, I don't generally enjoy that. ( )
Very interesting premise - a world where the powers that be try to avoid conflict by making everyone look more or less the same. Of course, not all is well in this Utopia. It has a lot to say about how we view others and see conditioned to see others and ourselves. The author manages to both critique today's society while also supporting it. This is definitely a to be continued book; you can read it and not the sequels but the story doesn't end with the book like The Hunger Games - closer to Catching Fire. ( )
This was better than I thought it would be but I don't intend to keep reading the series. Although the premise is good, there just wasn't really anything that caught me. It wasn't the love (or the love triangle) or the idea of Peris....all pretty and perfect...
An original idea, though, and well thought out. ( )
The Uglies books are the perfect parables of adolescent life, where adult-imposed milestones, rituals, and divide-and-rule tactics amp children's natural adolescent insecurities into a full-blown, decade-long psychosis.
Just before their sixteenth birthdays, when they will will be transformed into beauties whose only job is to have a great time, Tally's best friend runs away and Tally must find her and turn her in, or never become pretty at all.
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Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. In just a few weeks she'll have the operation that will turn her from a repellent ugly into a stunning pretty. And as a pretty, she'll be catapulted into a high-tech paradise where her only job is to have fun.
But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to become a pretty. 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 a choice: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. Tally's choice will change her world forever....
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I originally read this book in 2012 when I was steeped in teen girl dystopias and I did not appreciate it much. With some distance I enjoyed it more. The writing is more juvenile than I would expect from YA today, and it feels derivative until I remind myself that it came out a full 3 years before The Hunger Games. Tally feels unique - until almost the halfway point she is acting on behalf of both the authoritarian government and her own desires. Shay is the more common dystopia heroine, but viewing the story from Tally’s perspective feels more realistic. It takes quite a bit of convincing to get her to turn against the status quo, which I find more inspirational than a protagonist who knows the right thing to do from the start.
I’m glad I revisited this book and I plan to keep reading. I’m very intrigued that Westerfeld decided to pick this series back up after more than a decade and I can’t wait to get to the newer books. It's worth noting that Tally and Shay are definitely queer-coded, though I can't tell if it's intentional or not. They clearly make each other feel real feelings, and David has a real "him??" quality. (Every time Tally said his name it reminded me of David and his sister Alexis from Schitt's Creek.) I really hope the author goes somewhere with it.
Emily Tremaine is a perfectly good narrator. I appreciated that she didn't try different voices for the different characters, I don't generally enjoy that. (