Pretties

This is a fast read. I really liked the approach to the second book in this series, as it shows new aspects of the Pretties' world. Though I had some lingering questions and issues that will probably not be addressed in the third book, I absolutely recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Uglies. As with

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the first book, I thought the world of the Uglies and Pretties was the most interesting aspect of the story - but in this book I grew to like Tally more and found myself more invested in her journey. I am really eager to read Specials now!

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The second in the Uglies series, Pretties started to get a little too monotonous, far-fetched and juvenile for my tastes. The language, while initially amusing, gave the story a futuristic Valley Girls spin which I found tiresome after a while. I will read Specials, which I suspect will get really

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bizarre, but only because I already bought it, plus I do want to know what happens to the literally high-flying Tally!

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"Pretties", the second book in Scott Westerfeld’s great “Uglies” series, continues where the first left off. If you haven't read book one and don't want to be spoiled, STOP READING NOW. Ok, so now Tally has had her surgery and her "smoky" friends are trying to contact her and save her from

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her "pretty" ways. She now runs with a group of "pretties" who seem to be smarter than the rest, called "crims" because of their "criminal" backgrounds as "uglies". The leader of this group is Zane and he and Tally start up a romance while still pulling "ugly" tricks.

This book suffered a bit from "middle" book syndrome but was still very compelling save for some blatant anorexia and cutting (sure, it worked as part of the story, but I personally didn’t like it). Tally and Shay continue their "love/hate" friendship/rivalry which is a well-drawn and convincing adolescent relationship. Some characters from the first book, such as David are given not as much screen time as I might have hoped and some new characters, such as a savage young man who is part of a anthropological study of violence, are given a bit too much. You do learn more about the world the author has created and are well set up for the third book, "Specials".

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Westerfeld's 2nd book in the "Uglies" trilogy (which added a 4th book) is a good transition. "Pretties" delves into a world where pretty people are constructed via cosmetic surgery and do nothing but hang out, go to parties and look beautiful. Tally receives a note from herself before she became

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"pretty" and soon embarks on a journey to cure herself and others of the lesions that are put into pretties' brains.

Good ethical and philosophical arguments arise within the story and will keep teenagers discussing what is shallow vs. what is real. Excellent science fiction.

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The first book in this series (Uglies) interested me enough that I wanted to read the 2nd to see what happened next. About mid-way through this book, though, it became less interesting as it became more and more predictable. I assume without having read the 3rd book that Tally will next become a

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Special and will find some way to rebel against the other Specials. At this point, I am not interested in reading the next book because it is too easy to guess what will happen next.

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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

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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?

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After the end of Book one, we immediately delve into the pretty world. I found the change of scene very interesting. We finally get to see what bieng a pretty is like first hand, instead of from a Uglies POV. The struggle from vapid immaturity to cognitive intelligence is a well executed story. I

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read a review somewhere (perhaps this site) that berated the cutters, but I found it enlightening. Never having hurt myself intentionally, it was an interesting POV.

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Tally is now pretty. A beautiful girl with perfect hair, perfect teeth, and a perfect body. However, there is actually something wrong with her. Not just her, every person that has turned pretty due to the operation given to everyone after they turn 16. They all have brain lesions. After Tally

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meets someone and gets a letter in the mail and 2 pills to make the lesions go away, Tally takes them and soon starts feeling normal. What will happen in the rest of "Pretties?" One things for sure, it will be exciting!

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Tally's back and she's gotten what she's always wanted. As a Pretty her life is all parties, luxury and living without a care in the world. But, when she is tracked down at a party, parts of her ugly life come crashing back to her. After that all it takes is a kiss to make her bubbly enough to

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remember that something is wrong and realize that everything is not as it should be.

Pretties was a book that started off with a bang and then kept sucking you along on the adventure. I found it to be quite a bit more exciting than Uglies. I thought the ending a little heartbreaking, although a bit predictible and it left me a bit anxious to read the third book to find out what happens. I might have to plan on reading it sooner than I originally anticipated.

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an extremely awesome book! the second in the series. if you plan to read this though, i would reccomend reading uglies first or else it won't make much sense

After the end of Book one, we immediately delve into the pretty world. I found the change of scene very interesting. We finally get to see what bieng a pretty is like first hand, instead of from a Uglies POV. The struggle from vapid immaturity to cognitive intelligence is a well executed story. I

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read a review somewhere (perhaps this site) that berated the cutters, but I found it enlightening. Never having hurt myself intentionally, it was an interesting POV.

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Tally Youngblood is back after the events of Uglies, but now she is a Pretty. The Pretty operation is what happens to everyone when they reach 16. They have their face and body changed to conform to Pretty standards. She lives with the other Pretties who form cliques/clans. They party all the time,

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have access to as many clothes and amusements as they want and generally have no responsibilities.

Tally is part of the Crim clique and their thing is pulling tricks like they did in their younger Ugly days. It gives them a buzz and helps them wake up from the Pretty haze that they otherwise live in. Tally is drawn to fellow Crim Zane and the two of them quickly start spending more and more time together. Events from Tally's past though don't stay buried for long and people form the Smoke start appearing to her with a series of clues and tests for her to follow. Trouble is, will she like what she finds at the end and where will it take her next.

This was a lot of fun. I like Tally and it was good to meet some new characters like Zane and Andrew Simpson Smith. The story moved on nicely and I am looking forward to the next in the series.

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Hm, what can I say? It was ... bubbly, lol. I probably preferred the 1st one, not sure way. I guess it was the thrill of discovering a new world, which tapered off in the second book. Still, I've got the next one on my bedside table, all ready to go. So, yeah, recommended to dystopian fans

Pretties is the second volume of the Uglies Trilogy, and takes up the story right where the award-winning Uglies left off. Tally has gotten everything she has always wanted: to be Pretty--to have a hot boyfriend, lots of friends, parties and fun all the time, to be free to do whatever she wants and

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not to be responsible for anything. At least, that's what she used to want when she was Ugly. But that is before she found the Smoke, and unintentionally betrayed the community that lived in secret outside of the system.

Of course, she doesn't remember most of that now that she's been made Pretty; being Pretty isn't just a physical change, the brain is deliberately altered as well. But she does have a sense that something is just not quite right with her carefree world. And she's not the only Pretty who's uneasy. When someone from her Ugly past crashes a party to get her a message her world suddenly becomes more dangerous because she begins to remember what she's learned, and there are some people who will stop at nothing to protect their secrets. Tally and her friends develop a daring plan to escape the confines of New Pretty Town and run away to the New Smoke. But with the authorities watching more closely every day, anything could go wrong and their time is running out.

Scott Westerfeld delivers yet another piece of great dystopian fiction for young adults with Pretties. I'm not sure which I've enjoyed most so far, but I will definitely be picking up Specials to finish off the trilogy.

Experiments in Reading

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Tally Youngblood, now pretty, is having the time of her life - or so she thinks. She's beautiful, healthy, and completely spoiled. Encouraged to party and "surge" (surgically alter herself) and be generally vapid, Tally gets twinges that she's not happy like she's supposed to be. Then she gets a

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message from her old, ugly self. She knows what's wrong. She and her clique, the "Crims," attempt to keep their heads clear - to keep "bubbly" instead of "pretty-headed" and to escape from the clutches of the city authorities known as Special Circumstances.

Pretties was a good follow-up to Uglies, though not quite as gripping. True, it was still fast-paced and when I picked it up I didn't want to put it down, but I didn't have the driving urge to pick it back up once I'd put it down that I had when I read Uglies. That could have been because Tally was already pretty and was constantly fighting the pretty-headed fog surgically altered into her brain, and that fog certainly comes across in the prose of the book.

In all, I liked the book, and want to know what happens in Specials and then in Extras.

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This is my second go around with Tally Youngblood and Scott Westerfeld. Now I really did not like the first book in the series, Uglies.

Some of the main issues that I had with that book were not fixed in this book. But at least this time around they are a little more tolerable. Mainly the word

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choice. Westerfeld still tries to create this futuristic environment by coming up with slang terms and while I understand the concept the execution leaves much to be desired. Instead of pulling me into the story, the slang, left me puzzled and often times wondering what the characters were talking about. I found myself supplementing Westerfeld word choices with my own to make sentences make more sense. The most annoying habit he had in this book was hyphenating words and doing it often. For example:

nevorus-making
dizzy-making

And lot of other ones. Almost on every single page.

Last time I mentioned that I really did not connect with the characters in the book. I did not have the same problem this time. I liked Tally Youngblood's character and the other main character that he introduced in the installment, Zane. I thought that the characters were a little more realistic this time. Also, Tally seemed more mature. The personality of the characters (especially Tally) really shined through this time.

I also enjoyed that Pretties was much more fast paced to me. There was a lot more action happening and that helped. But with those actions you could see Tally's character growing and developing.

Westerfeld also picked up nicely in between the two books. There was no awkward reintroduction. I just gave a few paragraphs to remind the reader of what happened last time.

Overall a much better book than the first.

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2nd book in trilogy by Westerfeld (Uglies). Tally has changed into a Pretty. Follows her adventure in taking the "pills" to fix the scarring on her brain. She gets Zane involved in the process only to find that the pills should have been taken together. Leads right into the next book.

Tally Youngblood is no longer Ugly, she is now Pretty and she is getting ready to join the Crims, one of the coolest cliques in New Pretty Town. Tally is finally at the party she’s been anxiously awaiting, the one at which the Crims will decide whether or not she can join, when some of the

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Smokies show up with a secret about the past she can no longer remember. Tally and her new boyfriend Zane fight to stay bubbly and not let themselves give into the lesions that make them pretty-minded, but it isn’t easy when the city and Zane’s own body are against them.

I really do like this series. Westerfeld keeps up the action without making this a brain-dead action book. The love-triangle also worked much better than one in another young adult I could name. Perhaps the best part is the social commentary, which works because of the dystopian society in which Tally lives. I don’t even want to describe some of the commentary both about Tally’s time and our own because I don’t know how to keep it from sounding heavy-handed, although Westerfeld pulls it off quite nicely.

Perhaps the only the I didn’t like about “Pretties” is that it ended with a similar sort of cliffhanger (although not quite the same) as did “Uglies.” They were a little too similar for my taste, but that didn’t stop the ending from propelling me straight into “Specials!”

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This book is amazing. I totally love the way they talk in this book. It's so funny but yet totally great. I also love the adventure of this book.
At the end of this book I wished that Zane, Tally Youngblood's boyfriend could have stayed with her. They were so great together. I feel really bad

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about the relationship between Tally and her best friend Shay.

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OK, so I didn't stop to catch my breath after reading the first one, and I was surprised and delighted with the strange turn of events in this second instalment. Again, I had a pretty good idea what would happen at the end, but had fun following the twisty path it took to get there.

Darn, and number

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three is still on order.

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Tally Youngblood has been outside her native society where everyone is made supermodel-beautiful through cosmetic surgery, and is now a "pretty". Despite the efforts of the architects of her world, she remembers what she learned among the dissidents who live in the wilderness-- and she is

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determined to escape.

This is par for the course for the middle book in a trilogy, giving more exposition of the flaws in the society and setting up for the third book.

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I was intrigued by the second book of the series, he has a way of tying everything together...i can't wait to read the last one. this is a great examination of societial woes, and teenage "angst" although there isn't much angst here, he potrays teens as intelligent,
recommend this book to anyone,

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young and old

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Pretties started off a lot faster than Uglies did. The action came quicker this time around, but then I felt he got a little distracted in the middle/end of the book, and tried to just like… make the book longer than it really needed to be. I don’t know, maybe the third book will tie it all

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together and everything will be pretty and bubbly again. ^_^

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Tally Youngblood is finally pretty. She lives in New Pretty town with her friend, Shay, and her old friend, Peris. Tally starts becoming friends with another guy named Zane. As Tally and Zane get into more mischief, Tally realizes why she became pretty after all, and recieves a startling message

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from her past. This book was as interesting as the first book. It is still full of suspense, romance, and cliffhangers. I would recommend it to any teenager. i really enjoyed it.

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