(425 p., Call Number: YA FICTION WESTERFELD)15-year-old Tally Youngblood lives in a futuristic society that conditions teens to believe that they are ugly until age 16, where they are given extreme makeovers to make them beautiful, pleasure-seeking "pretties", supposedly conferring equivalent evolutionary advantages to all. While awaiting this happy transformation, Tally meets Shay, another female "ugly", who shares her enjoyment of hoverboarding and risky pranks. But Shay also disdains the false values and programmed conformity of the society and urges Tally to defect with her to the Smoke, a distant settlement of simple-living conscientious objectors. Tally declines, yet when Shay is found missing by the authorities, Tally is coerced by the cruel Dr. Cable to find her and her compatriots–or remain forever "ugly." Tally's adventuresome spirit helps her locate Shay and the Smoke, and it also attracts the eye of David, the aptly named youthful rebel leader to whose attentions Tally warms. However, she knows she is living a lie, for she is a spy who wears an eye-activated locator pendant that threatens to blow the rebels' cover.
As it also forces its protagonist to question what is considered "right" and "normal" in an ethically challenged society, Uglies proves to have much in common with the Hunger Games.
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