 | Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there. But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. 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 the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever. |
Monday, January 19, 2009
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
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Uglies
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Tally Youngblood – lives in Uglyville, has the nickname “Squint”
Shay – Tally's new friend, share the same birthday. Nickname “Skinny”
Peris – Tally's friend, 3 months and 2 days older than her, already pretty
David – Shay's friend who was born in The Smoke, 18 years old.
Sol and Ellie – Tally's parents
Az and Maddie – David's parents (cosmetic surgeons) who reversed the operation and the lesions
Dr. Cable – in charge of Special Circumstance, sends Tally to the Smoke
On your 16th birthday, you turn pretty and move to New Pretty Town. Unfortunately, the surgery also gives you brain lesions to obey and become less clearheaded. She takes off her interface ring to be unnoticed and crosses an old bridge to find Peris at the Garbo Mansion, wearing a pig mask. Her mask disintegrates when she sees him in the elevator, and she pulls the fire alarm and bungees off the roof. Shay teaches her how to hoverboard. They go to the Rusty Ruins and board on the roller coaster after going down rapids. Shay sets off a sparkler to call David, but he didn't come. They scared the new uglies by arguing over a book, and Tally pushed Shay over the banister, but she had a bungee jacket. Shay believes they are being programmed into thinking that they're ugly to trick them into surgery. Shay wants Tally to run away with her to David, but she doesn't. Dr. Cable won't let Tally turn pretty on her birthday until she gets Tally back. Peris visits her to convince her to betray Shay. Shay left her clues:
Take the coaster straight past the gap,
until you find one that's long and flat (railroad).
Cold is the sea and watch for breaks (in the track),
at the second make the worst mistake (go down).
Four days later take the side you despise (the right),
and look in the flowers for fire-bug eyes (rangers who control the white tiger orchid, which had turned into a weed).
Once they're found, enjoy the flight (in the helicopter).
Then wait on the bald head until it's light.
Dr. Cable gives her a heart pendant, which will eye-scan Tally when she opens it to send Special over. She left 10 days after Shay, 4 days after their birthday. She eats SpagBol. A helicopter destroyed her sleeping bag while she was bathing. The field caught fire, and the rangers took her on the helicopter. Croy, Ryde, and Astrix are Smokies. The Boss is the 40-year old librarian, who has magazines. David had a handmade leather jacket. He led her into a cave. Later, he gives her gloves that he had made when he was younger. Shay is jealous of her. David lets her meet his parents, and they tell her about the lesions caused by the anesthetic. People with dangerous jobs have the lesions cured. David calls her beautiful, and they kiss.
She throws the pendant into the fire, but it contacts the Specials when it burns. Tally would save magazines from the Boss, and he would throw habanero pepper in the Special's eyes to let her escape, but she doesn't have shoes, so they switch roles. A Special caught her when she coughed quietly. They put her in a pigpen with Shay and Croy, and Shay accuses her of calling Specials. They take Tally away to Dr. Cable. They cut her handcuffs, and she goes on a roof because she says she hid the heart pendant there, and she gets on a hoverboard. She goes back to the cave that David had taken her to, and he was there too. They go back to the Smoke hours later after everyone left, and there were shoes everywhere for her since she escaped barefoot. The Boss was dead, but she saved his magazines. His parents were taken. They went back to the city to rescue his parents. The Rusties died by a bug infecting oil, and they tried to get in their cars and drive away. They plan to bungee jump over the fence of Special Circumstances. Three uglies (An, Sussy, and Dex) went to the Ruins to signal David, and they got them to help. They caused a diversion by making sparklers say “The Smoke Lives” in New Pretty Town and ride all over with hoverboards to keep Specials confused and busy. David nanotech glues the hovercar door to Special. They jump into the elevator shaft. David knocked out Dr. Cable, and they found Shay pretty. Shay doesn't tell David that Tally was working with Dr. Cable, and she forgives her. Tally used a powerjack to get his mom, Croy, Astrix, Ryde out, and they go back to the roof. Az died because Dr. Cable tried to change his memory. Tally put tracker cloth in the river to throw off the Specials. And everyone met at a cave past the ruins, except for David and Maddie, who go to the Ruins. Maddy took data from Dr. Cable about the lesions, and she thinks she can find a cure. Shay doesn't want to be cured. Tally tells David that she was a spy, and she goes back to Special Circumstance to be made pretty so she can be cured.