The Uglies by Scott Westerfield

I feel like I am sitting on a mountain of good books. I have read my share of books and I am always eager to suggest them to people. Nothing is worse than recommending a book and the person never does read it. I feel like they're missing out on something great. They just don't know what they're missing! Ironically, I've been told by several people that I NEED to read Fifty Shades of Grey and it's sitting on my kindle but... I just can't seem to start it.

What can I say about The Uglies series by Scott Westerfield? It is a suspenseful young adult series of books. The first book "The Uglies" sucks you in by describing a futuristic world where all that matters is how you look. People are separated into two communities. One is for the young kids and teens called Uglies. The Uglies are the under sixteen year old kids who are considered to be ugly. That is where they live together without their parents until they turn sixteen at which time they have a surgery to make them Pretties. When they are pretty they get to join the Pretties community where they are expected to do nothing but look nice and to have parties. The idea is that if everyone is pretty there is no discrimination and issues among civilization.

A fun feature of the book is that our lifestyle is something studied by them as long lost history. They are fascinated by our archaic way of life. They even discuss how ugly our people are. That there were few natural pretties in our lifetime which ended up models and actresses.

This story of course has a teen rebel who throws a wrench in the perfect way of life. Tally ends up causing all kinds of chaos. She is a teen, but she isn't helpless or love sick like a certain girl who throws herself into danger just to see a hallucination of her vampire boyfriend.

The series is slightly sci-fi but not extremely so. I recommend this to anyone looking for a fun take on the biggest problem facing teen girls, being the prettiest of them all. Looks are ranked so highly that too many young people see their reflections and only see what they wish they could change. It's sad and unhealthy. It is part of why I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of these books.

Read it, you'll be glad you did: The Uglies