This month I read the book Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. This science fiction novel is about a girl named Tally Youngblood who is about to turn sixteen. In Tally’s world, turning sixteen means undergoing an extreme plastic surgery to become what her society thinks is a “pretty”. When Tally’s friend, Shay, runs away to a land where “uglies” are accepted, Tally has a big decision to make, become a pretty or be accepted for who she is. In this story the main character, Tally, changed a lot. First of all, she was so set on becoming a pretty, she new she was an Ugly and she wanted to change that. “She put her fingers up to her face, felt the wide nose and thin lips, the too-high forehead and tangled mass of frizzy hair” (p. 8). This quote shows that Tally was very aware that she did not fit it with the pretties, she was very ready to change they way she looked to fit in. During the course of the story Tally wanted to stay ugly. She totally changed her perspective on the way she looked. I think was also one of the biggest turning points in the story. The ending of this book was a cliffhanger. In my opinion that is the worse kind of ending, but that’s how that writing persuades the reader to get the next book in the series. Without giving too much away about the end of the story, it was very unexpected. To be …show more content…
First of all this story takes place in the future. At one point in the book, the characters are referring to our generation as uglies. A story that takes place in the future is most likely science fiction. Advanced technology is also a huge part of this story. Although billions of dollars is spent on plastic surgery each year, this extreme procedure is way advanced for our time. This actually reminded a lot of Edgar Allen Poe. In his stories he always seems to mention things that are way ahead of his time. If stories talk about technology that we don’t even have today the story is science
The book I read was Pretties by: Scott Westerfeld. This book is the second book in a trilogy. The first book is Uglies. You will understand Pretties better if you read Uglies.
In the Uglies, being a pretty is the one thing everyone can’t wait to be. If you’re not a pretty, you’re pretty much thought of as useless until you turn 16 and get to have the long awaited surgery that transforms your face into something completely new and better. It is nearly impossible for Uglies to not want to look pretty. Even if one was to hate another, they would still want to look and be like them if they had big eyes or full lips. The text says, “There was a certain kind of beauty, a prettiness that everyone could see. Big eyes and full lips like a kid's; smooth, clear skin; symmetrical features; and a thousand other little clues. Somewhere in the backs of their minds, people were always looking for these markers. No one could help seeing them, no matter how they were brought up. A million years of evolution had made it part of the human brain” (Westerfeld 19). In other words, Tally is saying that it is part of their biology to want to be pretty. There is almost no freedom in Tally’s world and the only way to be accepted is to undergo the surgery and look like everyone else. The author is showing today's generation that this will be the future if teenagers keep idolizing and doing the same things as celebrities. Teenagers see someone they idolize with big lips and go get lip injections or see someone with long eyelashes and get eyelash extensions instead of just embracing how they
The Uglies is a book about a futuristic look of America. There are a lot of futuristic things like hover boards. But this society isn’t perfect like people think. The narrator in this book is tally Youngblood who will be on a journey to find her best friend. In this society everyone is obsessed with beauty. And the Uglies are the people between the ages of 12 and 16 they live in a remote community far from the beautiful people. In this community the Uglies anxiously wait for their 16th birthday. At the age of 16 they go through a mandatory plastic surgery in order to live up to society’s standards. After they go through plastic surgery they will be known as pretties, and they will also live with all of the other gorgeous people. After changing communities they will party all the time and spend most of their time drinking champagne. But then Tally find out that the government is hiding a scary secret about becoming a pretty and she will risk her life and her friends to save them from becoming pretties.
I think my favorite thing about this novel was the realistic ending. Some books try to just give you a fairy tale but this book had an ending that mad you think in the end if I was in the same position would I do the same thing. I didn’t like the fact that the novel portrayed mental illness in a way to say that it needed to be hidden and protected. I thought this novel was very believable for the time period that it was set in. I think the ending to this novel was perfect it was an accurate ending to this
In today society, beauty in a woman seems to be the measured of her size, or the structure of her nose and lips. Plastic surgery has become a popular procedure for people, mostly for women, to fit in social class, race, or beauty. Most women are insecure about their body or face, wondering if they are perfect enough for the society to call the beautiful; this is when cosmetic surgery comes in. To fix what “needed” to be fixed. To begin with, there is no point in cutting your face or your body to add or remove something most people call ugly. “The Pitfalls of Plastic Surgery” explored the desire of human to become beyond perfection by the undergoing plastic surgery. The author, Camille Pagalia, took a look how now days how Americans are so obsessed
The author did very well by putting a lot of suspense and shock at the end of the book. This was one of my favorite books I have ever because I enjoyed watching Sage thrive and fail throughout the lessons. I would recommend the book to people who love suspense and action. This book includes running, stabbing, whipping, and supreme royalty and mystery. If you read this book you will see a young boy from an orphanage turn into a king of his country. Also, you will have mixed emotions throughout the book like sadness, confusion, happiness, and angriness all in just a 350 page book. In conclusion, I recommend this book to many different kinds of people as this is one of my favorite
Many people have different perceptions of suffering. Some of them see sickness and trauma as the main causes of sorrow and anguish in a person’s life. Rarely does a person think that one’s physical appearance can be a cause of sorrow and misery. This is Lucy’s story. She recounts the events of her life in her book Autobiography of a Face. She developed cancer as a young child, and this forced her to undergo surgery and numerous sessions of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She had to endure numerous stares and insults from other people. This was a trying time for the young girl considering what she had to undergo. However, it did not compare to her later years. She spent countless hours in hospitals trying to get the perfect face. She did not want to be different from everyone else. In the end, she realized that the beauty and satisfaction that she was looking for were deeper within her. She could not get what she was looking for in the mirror or in the approval of others. To Lucy, being different from others was worse than the cancer she had. Despite the numerous challenges she faced, Lucy remained resilient.
Many people today feel insecure about their bodies. They feel that people will judge them more if they have a crooked nose or eyes that are too close to each other. Some get liposuction if they feel too fat or breast implants because they think it will make them more attractive to the opposite sex. These people who do not feel happy about the way their bodies portray themselves to others often feel that way because, according to psychologist Alan Feingold, “Physically attractive people often receive preferential treatment and are perceived by others as more sociable, dominant, mentally healthy, and intelligent than less attractive people.” (Feingold, 304-341) The individuals who think they are ugly can transform themselves from “ugly ducklings” to “swans” by using plastic surgery.
I did not like the ending of the story. I found that the ending was very predictable and anticlimactic, especially when all the tension was being built up throughout the rest of the book. When I was nearing the end of the book I was already starting to envision the ending of the book and when I got to the end I was disappointed to see that I was correct. I would have preferred if the ending was more of a cliff-hanger and ended completely different than anyone would have expected.
Uglies by Scott Westerfield is a young adult dystopian novel that deals with geopolitics, social and economic totalitarianism, and the spatial analysis of the dynamic of futuristic cities controlled by such a government. In the book, everyone receives dramatic surgery at the age of sixteen that makes them super-humanly beautiful, turning them into Pretties. This procedure was put into place to create peace amongst men by making everyone look the same and has no biological advantages, therefore they are equals. The cities in which the population live are a self-sustainable and controlled by a totalitarian world government that decides where people live, how they work, and how they will look. The government took the shape of the Pretty Committee,
If I were to choose a favorite part of the story, I would have to say the ending made the book worth reading. To start with, it ended the wonder of the question, which led before the answer, which we knew. It ended it with humor, which only this series would do. It ended with the fact that 6 x 9 = 42, which we all know is 54. Next, the following reactions add quite a bit of humor to the story.
To start with, Tally was manipulated, lied to, and she did everything that she was told, and in all the steps of the way she was a risk taker. She knew that the journey was going to be difficult (going to the Smoke), and that she had to risk her life to become pretty. Tally took that risk, and she went to the Smoke alone. She had never gone there before, yet that was the ultimatum to become pretty. Only someone that was dedicated to become pretty would take risks of such grand consequences. Tally was a risk taker because she didn't know if she was going to survive or if she would even become pretty when going to the Smoke, yet she did it and she put her life in risk. Not to mention, that she took these risks while being manipulated by Dr.Cable. Even though most of Tally's risks happened at the Smoke or at the journey those weren't the only times. David took major risks during the invasion of the Smoke, yet Tally took risks throughout the beginning middle and end of the story. During the whole book, Tally was taking adventures to the Rusty Ruins, New Pretty Town and she even went to the Smoke with only a piece of paper to help. On the other han...
In this piece, Grealy describes the influence of her experiences of cancer, its treatments, and the resulting deformity of her face on her development as a person. She explores how physical appearance influences one's sexual identity and over all self worth. She also explores how one's own interpretation of one's appearance can be self fulfilling. Only after a year of not looking at herself in the mirror, ironically at a time when she appears more "normal" than ever before, does Grealy learn to embrace her inner self and to see herself as more than one’s looks or physical appearance.
The best part of any of novel is the ending and this is no exception
series for two reasons. The first reason is because it ties up all the questions I had from the other books. This book really was a good ending, for me at least. And the second reason is because it’s just a great book. It has mystery, suspense, humor, action and many more things that keep you from putting the book down. On a scale of one to ten I would rate this ten and it is also my number one favorite book (so far).