Uglies

On the Back Cover
Tally Youngblood is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait for the operation that turns everyone from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to party. But new friend Shay would rather hoverboard to "the Smoke" and be free. Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The "Special Circumstances" authority Dr Cable offers Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

My Thoughts
The world Westerfeld created for his series is impressive -- to the reader, it's clearly dystopian, however one can see why the characters within the novel believe they live in utopia. There is no war, no hunger, no disease and no inequity. There is a new human life-cycle: "littlies" could be defined as anyone who hasn't become a teenager yet; "uglies" are past being a cute child but before being operated on; "new pretties" have just had the operation and are akin to partying college kids; "middle pretties" have moved out to the suburbs and started having families and; "late pretties" are older. In a world where technology has allowed society to want for nothing (food, clothing, luxuries, etc. come out of "the wall") the only thing that divided people was how they looked. To remove this inequity, the cities of the new world operate on everyone who reaches the age of 16, making them all "pretty".

I can't quite figure out if Westerfeld's use of simple language to describe things is unimaginative or genius. Having tried to read some novels where the author creates a new world, then renames everything within in, being overly imaginative is definitely a turn-off in my book, but at the same time having uglies, pretties, the wall, Uglyville, New Pretty Town, etc. seem ...unimaginative. Is Westerfeld just poking fun at Star Trek's "replicator" by calling his version "the wall"?

The distinct moral high ground over what should be the right thing to do in the future utopia/dystopia made me laugh. Like not cutting down trees, not eating animals or using animals for clothing/shoes, all substantial food is a soy-based product and all clothing is made of synthetic fibres, disdain for diseases like anorexia and bulimia, yet rampant consumption of pills that reverse excessive caloric intake (okay, you don't find out about this til the end, but still). It all seemed very cliched.

It was an interesting read, a little tough to enjoy at times, but overall I liked it enough to want to continue with the rest of the series. 

Tea Pairing

I sipped a lovely tea while reading Uglies. I picked up a tin of Ginger Pineapple Green Tea while roaming the Union Square Holiday Market in New York late last month. It was fresh, fruity and spicy with the mellow calm that comes with green tea. Absolutely delicious!