Reviews with content warning for Body shaming - Uglies

Honestly? I liked it! Pretties is peak YA sci-fi dystopian in its simplicity, approachability, ridiculousness, lukewarm romances, unexpected nuggets of wisdom, and charm. Did Shay

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ultimately feel like a character of plot convenience

? Sure. Was Tally and

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David's relationship cookie-cutter and dull

? Predictably. Was the explanation of what made someone "pretty" problematic? Oh, absolutely. But the tale that Westerfield spins is fun and even insightful (though ultimately misguided) in assessing the weaknesses that make topple societies. I'm happy that stories like these exist.

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helhas3letters's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Eugenics: the YA novel.

WARNING: this book ends with a cliffhanger!

I enjoyed this book and raced through it as it was easy to read. The plot is interesting - especially Westerfeld's futuristic ideas - and moves quickly, so plot points get their payoffs in a satisfactory way.

The characters were a little clichéd in the typical YA way. The main character was not likeable, but as a reader you can forgive it because she's admittedly been brainwashed her whole life, and she grows as the story goes on. However, I felt that towards the end of the novel, the main character's instincts about an event revealed them to be incredibly self-involved, regardless of the brainwashing. (I'm talking about

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Tally's reaction to David and Maddy being alone together after he'd just found out his father had died. Her narration makes it all about herself - I couldn't believe what I was reading!

)

Yes, unfortunately there is a

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totally unnecessary romance plot

, as often is the case with these YA dystopic novels.

I do wish that the author had delved more into the racial aspect of the eugenicist regime. It is frequently stated that, after the operation, people's eyes become bigger, their noses become smaller, and their lips more full. Wouldn't it be interesting for Tally to learn about the implications of this? Especially from a futuristic perspective. There is also a brief mention of the fact that people's skin tones get evened out, and even a moment where she thinks about how weird it was that people used to kill each other over their skin colour. I'd have just liked this to be explored a bit more. What if Tally starts to learn about her family's lineage, and discovers that she is of a certain heritage, the defining characteristics of which have been wiped out by the operation?

My biggest critique, however, is that I found it very hard to follow Westerfeld's descriptions of space, direction, and travel. I felt that, when characters' physical journeys were described (which was often), the author could have been more detailed and clear. Unfortunately, it became increasingly difficult to orientate the characters in my mind and I ended up giving up on trying to do so, ignoring the geographical comments, and just enjoying the action instead. (Neueodivergent problem?)

I'll probably be reading the sequel, because I'm interested to see where the story goes.

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cow_inthe_closet's review

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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tally and shay had more chemistry in this book than tally and david/zane ever did

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