Summary (from the author's official site): Uglies is set in a world in which everyone has an operation when they turn sixteen, making them supermodel beautiful. Big eyes, full lips, no one fat or skinny. You might think this is a good thing, but it’s not. Especially if you’re one of the Smokies, a bunch of radical teens who’ve decided they want to keep their own faces. (How anti-social of them.)
Uglies is a trilogy-plus-one, with Extras being a “companion novel” and told from a different point of view. All four Uglies books have been New York Times bestsellers!
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Bit of Background: I've had my eye on this book for a couple of years. I held off because it was never quite the right price for me to jump on. I ended up purchasing it because it was part of Humble Bundle's "Humble eBook Bundle 3". Full disclosure - I only bought that bundle for this book.
Thoughts:
The characters aren't the greatest and none are particularly fully fleshed out. In the interest of not giving away any spoilers, I'm only going to mention the two characters that really stood out to me the most, Tally and Shay. Tally is our very reluctant protagonist. She's pushed into every single major decision. Given the setting (everyone is brainwashed) and her age (16), this is believable. She does redeem herself in the end, but I do still take issue that her first turning point only happens because she met a boy she likes. Tally's friend, Shay, starts off as an interesting character. She has a mind of her own in a brainwashed world. Unfortunately, towards the end of the book, it became clear that she only exists to be plot points for Tally and not her own character. Every action, feeling, and thought she has exists only to make Tally do something or have a reaction, but not in a good, inspiring way.
There's a bit of romance out of no where that veers into insta-love territory, but it doesn't go anywhere at this point.
While the characters have a bit to be desired, the world building is fantastic. I loved the setting. I want to see more of it. I want to know how they reached the conclusion that a brainwashed and "perfect" pretty society was the best option. I also really liked how the book ended. I didn't particularly care for Tally throughout most of the book, but she came into her own in the last couple of chapters. She only has one idea that is completely her own in the whole book and it's the right one. I want to see her continue to develop.
Minor Quibble: The official summaries of this book are really bad. I'm not even sure how this book even came onto my radar, but had I just read the summaries - I would have completely passed over this book.
Verdict: 7/10
I really enjoyed this book. It's not particularly thought provoking, but it has an interesting world that's been created and is a nice fluffy read for those days where you just want to relax. I immediately bought the second book, Pretties, after reading it.
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