Pretties

In Tally's world, your 16th birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellant Ugly into a stunningly attractive Pretty, and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is having a really good time. Just before her birthday, Tally discovered that turning Pretty comes with a terrible price. She vowed to accept the operation, but with the understanding that her friends on the outside would rescue her, and let her be the guinea pig for the experimental and highly dangerous cure they're developing. But in the second book of the Uglies series, Tally's Pretty. And everything's changed. The new, Pretty Tally is totally happy right where she is. She doesn't think she needs any kind of cure at all. When someone from her Ugly life shows up with a message, Tally has a hard time listening. Did she really promise to give all this up? Is she bound by a promise she made when she was a different person? If there is anything left of the old Tally, how will she fight her way out to keep her word and help her friends?From School Library JournalGrade 9 Up–This sequel to Uglies (S & S, 2005) continues to provide a gripping look at a dystopian future, but does not stand on its own. Tally, the protagonist of the first book, has forgotten all that she did as an Ugly and has completely embraced the mindless life of a New Pretty, going to parties, drinking heavily, and thinking of nothing more than the next bit of entertainment. It is not until one of the Uglies from New Smoke comes and delivers a message for her that leads her to two pills, that she begins to remember the real reason she is Pretty: to see if the cure will work. Tally and her new boyfriend, Zane, each take one of the pills and both begin to stay focused for longer periods of time. Then he has a bad reaction to the pill, and Tally has to make a desperate attempt to get him to the only doctors who can help him–the ones outside the city. Westerfeld has built a masterfully complex and vivid civilization. His characters are multidimensional, especially Tally, who wrestles with what she has done in the past and what she will be forced to do in the future. Uglies and Pretties are both nearly impossible to put down. If you don't have the first one, make sure to purchase them both.–Tasha Saecker, Caestecker Public Library, Green Lake, WI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistGr. 8-11. In this highly anticipated sequel to the hit Uglies 2005), Tally Youngblood struggles to retain her mental acuity after undergoing the operation that transformed her into a Pretty. While in the renegade Ugly community, Tally learned that along with cosmetic enhancements, new Pretties are given brain lesions that leave them in a perpetual state of lazy vanity. Tally volunteered to take a drug developed to cure the lesions, but now that she is a Pretty, she has forgotten her promise. A coded message leads her to some pills and a letter that she wrote to herself before her transformation, and after swallowing the cure, she is catapulted into a dangerous new adventure, in which she discovers that the peace and happiness of Pretty society come with a terrible price. Riveting and compulsively readable, this action-packed sequel does not disappoint. Just as good as its predecessor, it will leave fans breathlessly waiting for the trilogy's final volume. Jennifer HubertCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved