they're created 2 prevent war, but they go to war..

SPECIALS

SCOTT WESTERFELD

SIMON PULSE PUBLISHING

2006

“One faces the future with one’s past” – Pearl S. Buck

Okay I’m sure I say this each time, but, this was my favorite book so far. It was jam-packed with so much action, I never wanted to put it down and it upset me I couldn’t finish this book as fast as the others (no time). This book is credited being the final volume in the UGLIES trilogy, however, the author must have felt something was missing because saga is the new trilogy, yes; there is another book after this one that I cannot wait to start on either.

The narrative is the same as the other books, mainly third person omniscient mainly from our old friend Tally’s perspective. Since we get to be in her head, there were moments in this novel that I didn’t like her. I thought this book would be about redemption right from the back, Tally saving the WORLD once again, while that may have been the case, Westerfeld kind of portrays her as a “bad” person, well she is a special so she can’t help it so it is justified, because Shay has to push her and order her and well let’s just say I like Shay again.

One of the most interesting strategies that Westerfeld emplaces in this novel are twists, but this time not involving Tally – making It more interesting. It was Tally in UGLIES who went to the smoke so that she could betray them and be pretty, but we wouldn’t have expected she’d actually like it out there n find her first boyfriend. It was Tally in PRETTIES who went back to her city to be a pretty so that the Smokies had someone to test out the cure on, Tally gave consent. In SPECIALS it wasn’t Tally who started the mass incoming of the cure for thousands of Pretties; she didn’t have to betray anyone; however she does feel like she could have done more for Zane.

There are a lot of times when Tally is talking to people, like Dr. Cable, and they say things that make you think again. It’s like at times Westerfeld wants you to consider why they have the operations and not to totally think that Dr. Cable is insane for making them – but she is – but a lot of it can be justified. Tally city does have a long history of dangerous practices, other cities have butted out to prevent war, but you know Tally had to do something…a war did start all because of two people – Shay and Tally, and what you might predict happens to them, doesn’t. That’s what makes this such an interesting read!

Another city does come into the picture, called Diego. This new city accepts the runaways, in an essence it is the New Smoke – they are helping the runaways from cities like Tally’s because what they do is inappropriate. Dr. Cable doesn’t like this one bit, so she waits for something bad to happen to blame it on Diego and tries to rule – and that has to come to a stop, does Tally live up to her new Special name? Does she get cured? What about the rest of the SPECIALS? Ah, I forgot to mention, Tally and her group of SPECIALS are called, Cutters, yea CUT, as in Knife, what happens? Does the love last between Tally and Zane, I mean…It’s the whole reason why she is going through with this, so Zane can be special and they can be happy again [although Zane does it so she can become normal and happy again].