My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Do you like young adult books set in the future with a reluctant hero? Books like: The Hunger Games; Divergent; Ender's Game; and Rot and Ruin. If so, you'll like Scott Westerfield's novel Uglies.
My wife reads a lot of young adult books. She's a middle school teacher and I like to call her the 'Book Whisperer.' She reads over 100 books a year and has a 300+ book library in her classroom. Finding the best book for a student is as simple as asking them what books they enjoyed recently. Because she has read all the books in her library, she is able to compare books. She's like Amazon: "Students who have liked Hunger Games in the past have also liked Divergent." My wife recommended I read Uglies because of other books I've liked.
Uglies is set in the United States several decades (or centuries) in the future. Society has crumbled and something 'better' has taken over. The question becomes, is the new way better.
While there are a lot of books that are in the same category as Uglies, the story has several concepts that are new. This book took me a lot longer to read than I expected. It wasn't as much of a page turner as the books listed above but was still enjoyable.
My favorite quotes:
"Maybe they didn't want you to realize that every civilization has its weakness. There's always one thing we depend on. And if someone takes it away, all that's left is some story in a history class.""Perhaps the logical conclusion of everyone looking the same is everyone thinking the same."
"What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful."
View all my reviews