May, Favorite Author Month, is almost over, but that doesn’t mean The Bookshelf doesn’t have enough time for one more post honoring the best of authors! Authors are some of humanity’s finest specimens. Authors take thoughts, actions, dreams, and emotions and put them into a story. They write about what’s around them, what they have suffered, what they have conquered, and what’s ahead of them. Most significantly, authors write about what’s most important to them. A great book can be about any topic and any character because a great book is not determined by those two things. A great book is determined by how much an author is interested in a topic and how much thought and effort they put into that topic. Great authors are ones that put a great deal of research, emotion, and originality into their great books. Scott Westerfeld is one of these authors.
A published author for over ten years, Westerfeld has written for both adult and young adult audiences. Today, his books are mainly targeted towards young adults, but that doesn’t change how he writes his books. I have read seven books and two short stories by Scott Westerfeld, and all of them were about different, but engaging, topics. Scott Westerfeld imagines and creates alternate worlds for his novels, worlds that he has obviously used many years and many words to develop and evolve.
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| The new US cover of Uglies |
Uglies, first published back in 2005, is the first in a series about a futuristic world where, at the age of sixteen, everyone receives an operation to become a “Pretty.” The title makes this book out to be a seemingly shallow tale, but it’s not. Uglies is a breath-taking, and often horrifying, look at a future Earth. Uglies starts off with Tally Youngblood, the main character for the first three Uglies books, sneaking out of her ugly dorm at night to see her best friend, Peris, who recently became a Pretty. Tally, who’s slated to become a Pretty in five months, is anxious to have her operation and to start living the party-like life of a Pretty. To help make the wait less tortuous, Tally decides to visit Peris, hoping that he will help her become more patient and help her overcome any worries. Unfortunately, reaching Peris is not easy. He is at a party the night that Tally arrives, and Tally must crash the bash to reach him. After a series of disappointing events, including an odd encounter with a now pretty Peris, Tally must escape the party by pulling an alarm and jumping off the building. On her way back over the river to Uglyville, Tally runs into a person. At first, Tally hides, thinking the person is a government official – it’s illegal for an Ugly to be in New Pretty Town – but after closer examination, Tally discovers that the person is not only an official but another Ugly!
Fast forward a few months later, and Tally is getting prepared for her operation, which is only a few days away. The person she saw in New Pretty Town, Shay, is now her new best friend. Tally and Shay share the same birthday, and they are both scheduled to get the operation on the same day, their sixteenth birthday. However, Shay has other plans. Shay wants to escape town and run away into the wild to live with the Smoke – a group of Uglies that have never received the operation. Shay tries to get Tally to come along, but she won’t budge. Tally looks forward to becoming a Pretty; she, unlike Shay, wants to be like everyone else. Shay ends up running away, to the wild, leaving Tally to receive the operation by herself.
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| Scott Westerfeld, author of Uglies |
When her sixteenth birthday rolls around, instead of being taken to an operating room, Tally is taken to a government official place called Special Circumstances. Tally, confused and scared, is unsure of what is happening, until an evil doctor, Dr. Cable, comes along and explains it to her. Dr. Cable explains to Tally that Special Circumstances has known about the Smoke for a while, and, now that Shay has run away to them, they want Tally to find the Smoke. If Tally chooses not to find the Smoke and its members, she will forever be an Ugly. Tally, not wanting to be ugly forever, starts on an expedition into the wild. Along the way, Tally discovers much about herself and the area outside of her protective city. Eventually, Tally reaches the Smoke and is shocked at what she finds. When she first arrives, she wants to immediately set off her locator, given to her by Special Circumstances, but finds that she cannot do it. Tally learns of what it means to actually become a Pretty and that it does more than just changes your appearance. It alters your brain! Tally questions if the world that she is living in is any better than the world that occurred before hers, a world that was torn by overpopulation, disease, and war. Tally must make a rash decision between what she has wanted all her life and what she just recently discovered.
Ultimately leading to a thrilling, cliff-hanger ending, Uglies is a phenomenal look into a world gone wrong. Often called the book that revived the dystopian genre, Uglies is in itself a debate about self-image, freedom, and willpower. Scott Westerfeld has received many accolades and positive reviews, from professionals and fans alike, for Uglies, which later spawned a series. Following Uglies is Pretties, Specials, and Extras. All four books incorporate both wonderful and horrific inventions and innovations of this futuristic world. Westerfeld plants multi-layered questions in the reader’s mind, questions that ultimately may not have a definite answer. His Uglies series, and other books that he has written, question modern society, the past, and the future and how things can be extremely different.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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