Tally Youngblood is an Ugly, and will be until she turns 16. That’s the age when everyone gets an exciting surgical procedure, bringing them all up to the desired Pretty standard, before going off to live in New Pretty Town and partying the rest of their lives away.
With her best friend Peris already made Pretty and off partying without her, Tally is left to her own devices playing tricks on fellow Uglies and sneaking into places she shouldn’t be, until she makes a new friend Shay. While Tally is eagerly counting down the days to her surgery, Shay couldn’t be more different. Shay doesn’t want to become a Pretty, and soon has Tally joining her on new sneaky excursions out into the Rusty Ruins and beyond.
But when Shay decides to run away on the eve of her 16th birthday, Tally is soon forced to follow – against her will. But what she finds out in the big wide world soon has her questioning everything that she’s long believed and in two minds about betraying those she’s found to the Specials. Special Circumstances are the group that polices this world (but who’s shortened name kept making me think that Terry Hall was out bullying teenagers), and they’d really like Tally to lead them to the Smokies so that they can wipe them out for once and for all.
This was a really quick YA read that takes our current society’s obsession with beauty and takes it to its extreme, and it’s one I’m already considering buying my niece as she heads towards her teens.