About book Uglies: Uglies; Pretties; Specials; Extras (2012)
The protagonist in these books (except the last one) really does make you want to throw the book across the room. She's just. Incredibly. Selfish. With lack of a moral compass. You keep hoping she finds it in the end, that she develops a conscience. But... Nah. And there's not that many books that can make you hate the main character so much! (Bella Swan ain't nothing on Tally Youngblood).BUT this had a rather unexpected consequence for me -- it made me love reality. Most fiction books are forms of escapism; you fantasise over the characters, and it takes you away from reality. While these books ARE of course fictional, in the end, they remarkably make you value your life, instead of making you feel like life "isn't as good as in stories". You realise, actually, you're much better off, and you have your own cool story to live.These books are the unexpected anti-romantic. I'd recommend it just for the experience alone, which will probably be very unique to anything you've felt reading other fiction. These books slap you on the face and give you a wake up call because, actually, the selfish yet resourceful characters motivate you!So it's for this injection of love-for-reality that I actually, strangely, quite liked these books! And despite the main character being irritating, the books themselves are not irritating at all, because this makes you engage with what's going on a lot more acutely.The 4th book isn't quite like this, as the main character is much nicer, so is a sweeter after-taste to what is quite a bitter (but very decent) trilogy. As I typed in the titles of this series I realised this is one of the few times that having the story divided into separate books actually makes sense, rather than just a chapter divide. In each story our heroine is basically a different person and is dealing with a different aspect of the futuristic society. Hard not to give spoilers in this review. I will say the first book was hard to finish. It's like YA writing from A to B. And I didn't like the betrayal of the girlfriend; it seemed unnecessary. In fact, all the romantic elements might well have been left out. None of them felt true, or particularly important, just thrown in because they were expected. Those relationships would have been better as friendships and still worked as they do (as motivators) for the plot. I also found some logic problems: why make everyone look the same then allow them to dye their hair different colours? Get tattoos? All distinguishing marks that could lead to preference of one person over another which the surgery was supposed to eliminate and make everyone equal.That said, once I finished the first book I had to read the second and was delighted it was so different, the same with the third and the fourth is a great summary/finisher and is quite funny as well. Get through the first book and the rest are a terrific read.
Do You like book Uglies: Uglies; Pretties; Specials; Extras (2012)?
Kept me up on consecutive nights rampaging through the pages.
—Sarah
Interesting take on how we view each other in society!!!
—Korey
