Uglies

I recently borrowed this book from the library, I've found it hard to find a good book since The Hunger Games, apart from I am Number Four and Crescendo of course ;). But Uglies by Scott Westerfield was really good. It's set in the future and the little freedom the people have is astounding, somehow they have less freedom than we do now... They have to wear an interface ring, are not allowed outside the city limits and all the machinery they own is tracked. So they can never truly be alone. They aren't even taught to write any more. Everything, including diaries, are kept on computers.

*Spoiler Alert ;)*

In this city once you turn 16 you become a 'Pretty'. You have an operation where they change your bone structure and make you beautiful, with perfect check bones, big eyes and full lips. The operation is suppose to make everyone equal so there will never be another catastrophic event (that they never describe) that will almost destroy them, like how it destroyed the Rusties, that's us.

Tally's friend Shay runs away to the Smoke, where all those who go against the rules of the city have started their own city,  which is full of the Uglies who never wanted to be Pretty. Tally is forced to go and find the Smoke by Special Forces who want to shut the place down. But the only instructions she has is a cryptic message written by her friend just before she left.

She arrives at the Smoke and falls in love with place, she also learns the secret of the operation: small lesions are placed in the brain in all of those turned pretty, unless they work for the Government/Special Forces which change the personality of the person which stops any non-conformity to the people in charge of the city. So she destroys the transmitter she is supposed to activate when she arrives at the Smoke, without realising that when it is destroyed it activates itself. So the Smoke is under siege.

She manages to escape and travels to the city with David, the person who usually recruits the Uglies, and tries to free her friends. Shay, who most hated the idea of becoming Pretty, is turned Pretty. And David's father is killed. Tally has to try and save the day, and the book ends with her handing herself in so she can become Pretty, in a plot to save Shay from the lesions.

I hadn't actually heard of this book until seeing it in the library, but it turns out there is a whole series. The next book is Pretties (which I will hopefully be getting tonight) and then Specials and then Extras, and I hope I wrote those in the right order... It was quite a good book, and was similar to The Hunger Games in the way it was set in the future and the place was run by evil people. I can't wait to read some more!