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| Rainbow M&M's Cookies |
I found this cookie recipe on Sally's Baking Addiction and it turned out to be the perfect holiday cookie. Pair it with a glass of peppermint milk and you have a yummy treat. And now, for the review...
A YA Book Review: Uglies by Scott Westerfield
In a world where a person is considered ugly until the day they turn sixteen and can have an invasive operation that turns them pretty, Tally is counting the days until her sixteenth birthday. All her friends have already turned pretty and now live on the other side of the river in New Pretty Town. It isn’t until she meets a girl named Shay that Tally begins to wonder if turning pretty is everything she’s ever dreamed it would be. When Shay decides to run away and join a band of “uglies” nicknamed the Smokies, Tally is forced to find her if she ever hopes to become pretty herself. But in the world of the Smokies, a crude town built in a hidden location away from the eyes of Special Circumstances, Tally discovers the truth behind what it means to turn pretty. And she quickly realizes she wants nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, it may be too late to change her fate.
In a world where a person is considered ugly until the day they turn sixteen and can have an invasive operation that turns them pretty, Tally is counting the days until her sixteenth birthday. All her friends have already turned pretty and now live on the other side of the river in New Pretty Town. It isn’t until she meets a girl named Shay that Tally begins to wonder if turning pretty is everything she’s ever dreamed it would be. When Shay decides to run away and join a band of “uglies” nicknamed the Smokies, Tally is forced to find her if she ever hopes to become pretty herself. But in the world of the Smokies, a crude town built in a hidden location away from the eyes of Special Circumstances, Tally discovers the truth behind what it means to turn pretty. And she quickly realizes she wants nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, it may be too late to change her fate.
I’ll be honest, it took me a little while to get into this book. I even set it down several times, but kept picking it up, and boy, am I glad I did. It’s set in a futuristic dystopian-type society where the leaders want to make everyone appear the same. No one should be more beautiful than another, so they make everyone pretty. I guess it’s a way to get rid of judgments and unfairness, but it’s really a way for the ones in charge to control the population like mindless sheep. Tally is a very superficial character at first, but it’s because of the way she’s been brainwashed into thinking that anyone “normal” is ugly and anyone “pretty” is the ideal. You do see her mature and grow throughout the novel as she learns more about the truth behind these operations.
Here’s one of my favorite passages from the novel. It shows this superficial mentality of these teenagers who are waiting to turn pretty. This is an excerpt of Tally and Shay as they are looking at an old magazine while in the Smokies library.
“Who are these freaks?”
“They aren’t freaks,” Shay said. “The weird thing is, these are famous people.”
“Famous for what? Being hideous?”
“No. They’re like sports stars, actors, artists. The men with stringy hair are musicians, I think. The really ugly ones are politicians, and someone told me the fatties are mostly comedians.”
Anyone who likes YA dystopian novels will enjoy this read. And like most dystopians, it’s the first novel in a series. I can’t wait to read the next one titled Pretties. In fact, I’m heading to Amazon right now to buy it…
4 comments:
Loved Uglies - in fact, I loved the whole series :)
Sounds a bit like that Twilight Zone episode.
I loved this series too (except for Extras), but then again I've liked everything Westerfeld wrote. This series had a way of really making me angry. Poor Tally just never gets a break.
It is a great book, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series, although per Charity's comment, I may have to skip Extras.
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