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Specials by Scott Westerfield

The third book in the series, a sequel to Uglies and Pretties.

It’s a solid book, but the flashes of brilliance are harder to find this go. It’s probably because Tally’s “natural” persona is so subjugated at the beginning of the book– and partially because the Specials are annoying twits with a huge chip on their shoulder. While that makes it easy to root against them (when they’re being idiots), you do have to put up with them… and they wear on you much more quickly than the characters of the first two books.

As far as plot goes it’s a good book, and ends the trilogy with a world dramatically changed by the effects of Tally (and friends) over the trilogy. The world gets more complex in this world, and the depth makes it feel realistic, but the dramatic changes fight that complexity.

In the end, I’m probably being overly critical– it was a good book, a solid end to the trilogy– and I’ll read it after the first two when I reread the series. It might gain surprising depth on the reread.

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Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

The second book of the series, a sequel to Uglies. Tally struggles with being a bubble headed pretty– it starts off with the terrible struggles in picking which outfit to wear, but soon Tally is engaged in far more dangerous events.

I like the continuation– Tally’s changes are meaningful, as is her struggle against the newly created limitations on her thoughts. Not everything is easy, but she manages through in the end. The book was great and was consumed in one lazy, beautiful day.

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Uglies by Scott Westerfield

A very fast read, the author does a great job of building a plausible world with interesting issues. The idea of Pretties, a vapid beautiful people as a class or role you pass through in life was fascinating. There are a lot of good ideas buried in here about attraction, physical attribute manipulation, freedom and individuality, and more. For a long time I thought he was going to skip over the Rusties altogether after teasing, but I like the end he cooked up for them.

It looks like it’s at least a 4 books series; I look forward to tackling the next in line soon.