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Ivana A. | Diary of Difference (1171 KP) rated Uglies (Uglies, #1) in Books

Nov 26, 2018

Uglies (Uglies, #1)

Scott Westerfeld | 2005 | Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult (YA)

7.6

(39 Ratings)

Book Rating

Full review can also be found on www.diaryofdifference.com

A world where you are an ugly until your sixteenth birthday.
And then, you undergo a surgery and you become pretty. And life is perfect. Except, maybe, it isn’t.

This is one of those books where you visualise a world in so many details, and feel like you’ve lived there all your life. Also a book that captures society for what really is. A very pleasant and enjoyable read.

I received this book as a birthday gift. Have a look at my birthday book haul on my blog.

Uglies is the first book from the series by Scott Westerfeld. A dystopian world about ”uglies” and ”pretties”. A world in which society is split between beauty. A place where the ”uglies” are separated from the real world until they do a surgery and become pretties. Then, they grow up and join the world of pretties, where they are allowed to do everything they weren’t allowed before. They attend parties and have fun, and they don’t worry about anything.

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can’t wait to become pretty. All her friends have already turned pretty before her, and she is excited to join them in this marvellous world. But just weeks before her birthday, she becomes friends with Shay, who is not so sure whether she wants to become a pretty.

When her friend runs away and escapes the operation, Tally has a choice: find Shay and bring her back, or never turn pretty at all. And when Tally goes after Shay, she discovers that the world she believed in, might not be the real one…

I absolutely loved this book with all my heart. A beautiful world forming, an interesting scenario, great plot and interesting characters. I enjoyed reading about the world, how the author put the society together, and how it all worked out.

The characters were not as engaging as I would hope them to be. Even though you felt for them, you couldn’t connect a lot. Just a little bit, enough to make you wonder what will happen next. It was enough for me to keep turning page after page in the middle of the night.

The world the author created and the way the society works in this book is incredible. The ”uglies” and ”pretties” subject will always be matter of a discussion. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if your face has imperfections. It doesn’t matter how you look like. People love other people for who they are inside out, for the friendships, for the moments spent together, and for how they make them feel.

Another thing I loved was the subject of protecting the nature. I loved the little moments and theories of destroying a certain plant for a better tomorrow for all the rest of the plants.

‘’Nature, at least, didn’t need an operation to be beautiful. It just was.’’

An amazing book, a world where you can visualise every single detail, even though you’ve never been there. A dystopian society and a battle between brains and beauty. I enjoyed it so much and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

I strongly recommend it to all of you, my friends!

A question for you all – Would you do the pretty surgery or not?

Kudos

Night Reader Reviews (683 KP) rated Micro in Books

Jan 9, 2020

What I like most about the book was one of the same features that keeps me reading Michael Crichton's work. The author does his research very thoroughly. The book may be a work of science fiction but (0 more)

What I liked least about the book was how similar to another one of his books it was and how predictable some parts felt to me. (0 more)

Review Just becasue

The book Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Prestom was great. I may be a little biased because Michael Crichton is one of my favorite authors but at the same time I hold his work to a specific standard that he must meet or else I'm disappointed. Like most of his work Micro touches on some topics that as a society we should be aware of. It warns us of some disasters that new technology, being worked on or possibly already created, can cause. It id also an eye opener to the dangers of that our inventions pose.

In Micro a group of young graduate students at a college or approached by the head of a company called Nanigen. The graduate students are invited out to the Nanigen lab in Hawaii to see for themselves the work being done there and to see if they want to work for the company. Out of curiosity all the approached graduate students agree to go but their trip to Hawaii becomes more than what they bargain for.

Nanigen is studying the micro world mainly looking for chemicals that micro animals are making that could be useful to humans in some way. Also like many scientific companies in the private sector Nanigen is doing top secret work for the government. Greed gets in the way for some of the scientist already working for the company and the trip becomes extremely dangerous and even deadly for the graduate students. Having to deal with micro-bots and new technology never heard of before the students must fight to survive a world very different from our own.

What I like most about the book was one of the same features that keeps me reading Michael Crichton's work. The author does his research very thoroughly. The book may be a work of science fiction but there is a bibliography in the back for the curious reader to be able to learn more about the fascinating topics brought up in the book. For being a work of fiction the animals, plants, chemicals, technology,and scientific concepts are not. What I liked least about the book was how similar to another one of his books it was and how predictable some parts felt to me. Again though, I am very familiar with Michael Crichton's work and that would probably explain why it felt so predictable. I cannot hold that against the book.

Overall I would rate this book a 4 out of 4 and would highly recommend it. It has a very strong story and is believable which is an important factor for science fiction. The target readers for this book would start around high school age if not older. I feel like high school students will get the basic concept of what book was talking about but they might be lost on some of the finer detail. It all just depends on if the book is being read for the story or if the reader is interested in science specifically microbiology and nanotechnology.

I feel like I need to note on here that Richard Preston finishing the book did not harm it in any way.

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