Author: Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Dystopian/Science Fiction
Page Count: 370
Publication Date: November 1, 2005
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Source
*WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*
Pretties by Scott Westerfeld is the sequel to Uglies. This sequel centers around Tally Youngblood who is now pretty. She lives in New Pretty Town with the rest of the new pretties and loves spending her days with Peris and Shay. Tally, Peris, and Shay are all apart of the Crims, a very popular clique in New Pretty Town. All she has to worry about is having fun all of the time and making sure she is wearing the correct attire for parties. One day, Tally and the rest of the Crims attend a costume party and someone from Tally's past arrives. Tally must try to remember her past and decide whether she wants to stay in New Pretty Town and have fun all of the time or rejoin her friends from her past and fight for her life. This book was satisfactory. The first of half of the story was boring and nothing much happened but the second half of the story was more fast-paced and reminded me a lot of the first book. There is new lingo, a promising plot, decent characters, and an interesting view on humanity.
First, there is a lot of new lingo. Since pretties basically have brain damage, they tend to use different vocabulary and new,"cool" slang. Some of this slang includes "Crims", short for criminals, and "surge", short for surgery. At the beginning of the story, I was very confused on what these words meant. They are somewhat obvious and I may just be bad at catching on to these things, but the way the characters used this slang was very unclear to me. Eventually, Westerfeld explained what each word was short for, then I understood. There is also new terminology, which consisted of "bubbly" and "bogus". The new pretties use these two terms so many times it was driving me crazy. I swear, every sentence they were saying, "That's so bubbly," or "That's bogus,". It was honestly so annoying. I understand that the purpose of this language was to show how contorted the pretties minds were but it really got on my nerves.
Secondly, the plot was okay. The story had great promise to be a book full of action and betrayal, and at some points there was, but overall the story was bland. All that happened the first half of the story was Tally and Zane trying to figure out their past memories and them wandering around to find the cure for being pretty-minded. There were some scenes of action such as the trouble at Valentino Mansion and the revelation of the pills that contained the cure, but other than that the story was boring. The second half of the book, I feel, definitely made up for the first half. In the second half, Tally and Zane began to become cured and realized what an awful place New Pretty Town is. They find out secrets about Shay and how she is trying to find her own cure so she can be level-headed like the two of them. The most intense part begins when Tally, Zane, and the rest of the Crims decide to break away from the city and venture out into the wild to find the New Smoke. This is the part that reminded me of the first book Uglies. This part had the same ideas of Tally struggling to survive out in the wild on her own and her wondering if she will ever find her friends again. The end of the story was very interesting and left me in need of the last book in the trilogy Specials.
Thirdly, the characters were decent. Tally was very pretty-minded at the beginning of the story and was very dependent on the technology inside her home. Eventually, she became more like her normal self and was in desperate need for answers. She tried her best to do what was right for her faltering society and herself. Tally was an overall brave character. Zane is the leader of the Crims and is interested in Tally. He has been theorizing for a long time that there was something wrong pretties. When he meets Tally, he knows that all of his absurd ideas are true. He is very comforting towards Tally and wants what is best for her well-being.
Fourthly, Scott Westerfeld had a very interesting view on humanity. This story has a lot of scenes in which the characters make spiteful comments on our present day selves. These characters who live in this high-tech world think of us as these ugly monsters that destroy our environment and try to kill each other. I found these little comments very interesting because they are to some extent true. The characters described what we know as anorexic people as these people who are contaminated with some awful disease to make ourselves overly skinny. I especially enjoyed reading this part because it's true that people nowadays are so obsessed as becoming "pretty" when in reality all they're doing is making themselves sick and grotesquely unattractive. This story has made me think about our human nature and how horrible we really are.
In conclusion, Pretties by Scott Westerfeld was a pleasurable read. Although the plot wasn't at it's fullest, it left me in contemplation. I will, without a doubt, be continuing on with this series. I'm looking forward to see how this trilogy wraps up.
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