Book Review: Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Well, since I started a book blog to go with my YouTube Channel I thought I should actually post something! I'm going to try and review most of what I read on here with a few each month recorded as usual for uploading!

• Title: Uglies (Uglies #1)
• Author: Scott Westerfeld
• Page Count & Publisher: 425 | Simon & Schuster
• Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia
• Format: Paperback
• Links: Amazon UK | Goodreads

Summary:
Tally Youngblood is about to turn 16. She'll get her operation to turn her from an "Ugly" into a "Pretty". She'll get to party all night and sleep all day with the other Pretties. Her oldest friend, Peris, is already a Pretty and Tally can't wait to join him. Not long before her birthday she meets Shay, another Ugly not far from her 16th birthday. However, Shay would rather stay Ugly and look for "The Smoke" than turn pretty. Shay vanishes not long before she's due to have her operation and Tally is given a choice by Dr Cable from the almost mythical Special Circumstances: bring Shay back or stay Ugly forever. The choices she makes have far reaching consequences.

My Thoughts:
Uglies was actually recommended to me by a coworker, we've swapped book recommendations and always see if the other is reading something interesting! This was a pretty easy read and I got through the first three of this series in just over a week! I really enjoyed this one, it was definitely a good introduction to the world.

I didn't find Tally the most engaging of characters in Uglies, I was far more interested in Shay's story. At times it felt as though Tally was being swept along with everyone else, it wasn't until nearer the end that she took more control of her own path. She had a lot of lessons to learn and she definitely got there. There were some hard things to discover about herself and the world of the Pretties but she was a better person at the end because of it.

I did have a few questions about how sustainable this environment is, especially once you learned more about what is going on with the Pretties. An answer was given for the "important" people such as Doctors, but what about the dirty jobs that no one wants to think about? Where do all the resources come from? The relationships between the characters were a bit more developed than the world, though this may just be because Tally hasn't has cause to question the world around her.

On the whole I was pretty well absorbed by the story! I was certainly pleased that I had the next on hand to dive straight into!

My Rating: