Uglies by Scott Westerfeld is a book that, when I heard about it, I instantly knew I wanted to read it. It sounded brilliant; in a world where everyone becomes ‘pretty’ on their sixteenth birthday, what does is really take to be beautiful? It had so many of my favourite teen fiction aspects; dystopian future, check; evil, sneaky government, check; band of misfit rebels, check; and morally ambiguous characters, check. It had so much going for it and I was disappointed that it didn’t live up to my expectations.
It didn’t grab me. That is literally the bulk of my problem with this book. Everything about it screamed that I would love it and I just didn’t. The plot was well constructed, the characters fully three-dimensional, and the bad guys suitably bad-guy-ish but I just didn’t get anything from it. I felt it plodded, rather than skipped, and I couldn’t bring myself to care at all about the characters. The protagonist, Tally, was whiney and sullen, and didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about anything in the novel and, unfortunately, I feel that it transferred to the reader.
Now, the Uglies series has been widely read, and praised, and I don’t doubt that many people loved it. I have rented out the second and third novels in the series, Pretties, and Specials, and I’m hoping that reading about the same character a little more will endear this series to me. I’m not really holding out any hope but I challenge Westerfeld to make me love these books.
I do have to say, I love the premise of the books. I think it is a brilliant idea and, once again, is does seem likely to me that something of this nature will become the norm in society. Plastic Surgery is getting cheaper, is widely available and the stigma previously attached to it is decreasing. So who knows? However, Westerfeld’s novels do raise the interesting point that if everyone is beautiful, then really it transpires that no-one is. Our flaws and our imperfections are part of who we are, part of what makes us beautiful. Take away that, you take away all individuality and all you-ness. I think it’s a great message, especially with MTV and E! warping all our minds (including my own). I love this message, even if I didn’t love the novel itself.
