However, they will all still have perfect features and be extremely beautiful, therefore still making it seem as though there’s something wrong with looking anything less than perfect.

For example, new Barbies are coming out that are curvy, tall and short, with diverse hairstyles, which are supposed to better represent people in the world around us. We need to change this so that our world doesn’t end up like it is in Uglies. This links directly to the Uglies series where everyone is forced to completely change how they look and act, whether they want to or not, to please their leaders and peers. Most of the people who change their appearance probably only do so because society would look down on them otherwise. I mean, where will Botox, plastic surgery and make-up really get us in life? It doesn’t make us rich or happy and it doesn’t even give us love (well, not the real kind at least). I think that the books show that we need to get our priorities straight.Īt the moment, women at least, put beauty before everything else: jobs, doing well at school, even their own happiness. With the value put on beauty already and people already striving to look ‘perfect’, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did happen. It makes me wonder if – as we already have Botox and plastic surgery – we’ll be living in a similar world a few centuries from now. I think that the writer is trying to make a point about the way we view beauty nowadays and almost warn us about what will happen if we don’t change. In this series, Tally experiences friendship, love, betrayal and having to figure out, and choose between, right and wrong.Īlthough this series is set in a fictional, futuristic society, it seems to be a commentary on our own social values. However, there is also a group of people who want to keep their own faces and think that changing people into Pretties on their sixteenth birthday is wrong. Until the age of sixteen, everyone is an Ugly, waiting for the day when they can be transformed into a Pretty, and look however they want to. (You may note that Scott Westerfeld also added a fourth book to this ‘trilogy’: Extras, but I think that it does not mesh well with the others and therefore will not review it here). The Uglies series includes three books which document the lives of Tally and her peers: Uglies, Pretties and Specials.

Uglies book series order