Being controlled - Is it Worth it?

PRETTIES

SCOTT WESTERFELD

SIMON PULSE PUBLISHING

2005


“What happens when perfection isn’t good enough”


Well, the second novel in this trilogy turned saga did not disappoint me one bit। I could not wait to get to the end of the novel – only to feel let down (however, it built great suspense for the 3rd novel by Scott Westerfeld Specials)। The first book did the same thing so I guess I’m not too surprised।

The narrative and suspense draws us in as readers in as a reader more। I catch myself getting dragged into the book more and more as I read on, I want to be there alongside Tall on her adventures; especially in this novel where she has a new group of friends – Pretties. Sorry, but the novel is titled Pretties so if you haven’t read it you could assume that is what happened. I hate the fact that she has returned to the city, in the first novel I think I made it clear she had to sacrifice a lot, but sacrificing herself to become pretty so that they can try and cure her – absurd.

Westerfeld has placed this teenage girl in many near death experiences and many situations where she has to make sacrifices। As you may guess she leaves out the city again, even though she is a pretty, but at what expense? Being outside the city limits with her new best friends that also want to leave, they call themselves the Crims, opens up new possibilities। Considering she fell for the “leader” of the Crims, Zane। Zane is a very interesting character because he as much of a pretty as Tally is, despite their operations; and no novel is complete without another love story right?

Shay...well I won’t give too much away but I want to like her so bad, but can’t. There is a such thing as going too far to fit in, I mean she was already a part of the Crims, she was the reason why Tally went to the Smokes in the first place, even though she was blackmailed in the first novel to go get her, Shay is part of the reason why they go back to the city to break out the Smokies, and part of the reason I wanted to throw the book at the wall when I reached the last page.

This book one of the main ideas was to stay bubbly, it helped them remember their Ugly days, especially since the Crims are tricksters and have been since they were Uglies. Bubbly I would describe as blood rush, kissing, hover boarding, etc. But we also learn a lot about the Specials, and Dr. Cable. There were a few moments where I found myself thinking that maybe the operation was legit and okay, maybe its okay that they are kind of controlling them it prevents all the bad things from happening right? (war, violence, revenge). But, in the end God gave us free will, why should a government have control of that? What gives them the right to allow some outsiders, non pretties, live in the forest, only so they can monitor their behavior for their own benefit – everyone is a person. (I don’t know if I mentioned before but the reason why there is such controversy is because this operation controls not only what they look like on the outside but the inside as well.)

As you can imagine Tally does escape in the end, but at what price? The next novel is called Specials, you know, the ones that were after her. After this one was called Pretties and she became one on page 1, I can only where Westerfeld leads us next.