Reviews tagging 'Dysphoria'

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

13 reviews

allison55's review

adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Rereading this is fun, but it’s way more stressful than I remembered. The plot unfolds in a believable way, but it’s crazy how long it takes Tally to confess. The naivety theme is very strong, which is interesting to look back on from an older age demographic.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming and Dysphoria

ryendnae's review against another edition

adventurous reflective medium-paced

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

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Gaslighting, and Dysphoria

Minor: Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

swamprat410's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Dysphoria, and Classism

dmrains's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Rereading this as an adult with my high school students, I noticed a lot of tropes I've come to really dislike among YA novels

"special girl" Tally instead of writing Shay as a more important character

fridging Shay by having her have the surgery against her will really did her dirty

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, Bullying, Death, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Grief, Abandonment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

Minor: Racism, Torture, Blood, Car accident, and Alcohol

My students were really upset that

Tally & Shay didn't ride off into the sunset as a cute lesbian couple

comefromaway's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

If 30 year old me loved this book, I can’t imagine how much 15 year old me would have adored it!
Really interesting concept that took a minute to get into but once I was there I flew through this.
Only thing I didn’t love is that I there isn’t an ‘end’, it just seems to flow straight into the next book.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming

Moderate: Dysphoria

Minor: Eating disorder

daisdu's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

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

4.0

Reread. Definitely don't love it as much as I did in middle school, but it still holds up for me. As an adult, David really comes off as a groomer, but I don't think that makes the story worse, in fact I think it improves the story a bit. The premise of the world is really interesting and I really love the moral dilemma at it's core. I think Tally and Shae read as extremely believably 16, which can definitely make them annoying at times.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Death, Medical content, and Death of parent

schrammanda's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming and Dysphoria

Minor: Eating disorder, Grief, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

a_wren_that_reads's review against another edition

adventurous emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Fatphobia, Dysphoria, and Classism

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, and Medical content

agatha_hopkins's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Blood

helhas3letters's review

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

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

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.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content and Medical trauma

Moderate: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Eating disorder, Racism, Police brutality, Grief, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism