Pretties

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

In the highly anticipated sequel to Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, Tally Youngblood finally undergoes cosmetic surgery to be a pretty. She finally has it all-she’s beautiful, popular, has a gorgeous boyfriend and wears truly awesome clothes, but something doesn’t seem right, something is mentally off and Tally is on a mission to find out what’s happened. Set in a dystopian future, where everyone is pretty, there’s a price for beauty. Once having undergone the surgery pretties are given brain lesions that leave them in a state of being perpetually lazy and living a life of luxury and high entertainment. Now that Tally is a pretty she forgets she has volunteered to take a drug that cures the legion. This epic sequel takes the reader on a journey that helps Tally remember what’s important and who she is and who her true friends are. In a twisted and engaging story, this is an interesting book that deals with our obsession with vanity and a celebrity like lifestyle.

                        A story that is definitely intended more for a young adult audience, I see more and more middle school aged girls reading this series. While the second book in the series deals with themes of popularity, fame, vanity obsession and the harm in them, I think it ultimately teaches young girls the importance of who you are and not being focused on reaching perfection when it comes to our appearance. An interesting approach to telling a story focused on the standards of beauty and reaching a state of perfection, I applaud this author and how he executes such a powerful message. While reading this book, I couldn’t help but think how many young girls (10, 11, 12 years old) request this book. It made me think about parental guidance in tween reading. Are they aware that the maturity and young adult fiction and tween fiction is significant? Do they care/not care what their children are reading? Should tweens be reading material that is too old for them? It’s certainly an interesting topic to discuss.