Uglies: The Collector’s Set
Scott Westerfeld
Simon Pulse, 2009, 1,680 pp., $34.99
simonandschuster.com
Tally Youngblood is an Ugly and can’t wait to be turned Pretty. In Tally’s world, your 16th birthday means you are given an operation that changes everything about you until you are perfect and beautiful in every way. In Uglyville, life is boring and slow. In Prettytown, it’s a high-tech paradise of fun and parties.
However, Tally’s world turns upside down when she meets Shay, an Ugly with the same birthday as Tally. Instead of wanting to be Pretty, Shay wants to escape. Tally must choose to betray her friend or lose her chance of being Pretty.
The first of the four-book series, Uglies is filled with ideas of what might happen to a society run by humans who do nothing but chase pleasure and the world’s idea of perfection. This book could spark great dialogue with youth about how they see their world and how they view themselves.
