Rachel Falb

Rachel Falb
Uglies
Scott Westerfeld
Dystopian
Just Right
Just Finished

1) The end of the book was a total shock to me. David and Tally break everyone free from the officials and they all escape. When Tally finds Shay, she finds that she is pretty and she can't believe that this happened. David finds his mom and he finds out that his dad, Az, has died. David is torn and Maddy knows that it will be hard for them to recover. They all head out of the city and out towards the ruins. Maddy and David go the ruins to be alone and everyone else camps out near the river hiding from the officials. Once they all meet together, Maddy finds a way to cure people's lesions so they can be pretty, but they are no longer brain washed. She wants to try the medicine to see if it works. The only pretty that she has access to is Shay. Because Shay is brain washed, she won't take the medicine because she likes being perfect and pretty. The only way for Maddy to figure out that the medicine works so she can help people, is if she can try it on a pretty. Tally volunteers to become pretty and when she comes back, she'll take the medicine to see if it works. David doesn't want her to go because he thinks the operation will change her and she'll never be the same. He doesn't want the officials to treat her the way they treated his father. The book ends with Tally being picked up by a hover car to be taken into the city for her operation.

2) I really enjoyed reading this book. I took a break and read something else when I was in the middle of the book because I was kind of getting tired of this book. It reminded me a lot of other Dystopian books so I found it a little slow. I eventually came back to the book and I am glad I did. The ending was not like most Dystopians, so Westerfeld definitely pulled me in and made me more interested. For example, in the beginning of the book, I thought that Tally was going to go to Smoke and see that Shay and David have fallen in love, but by the end David and Tally end up being very close. I think that it is nice that Westerfeld leads you on to predict one thing is going to happen, but the ending ends up being the opposite. For example, I thought that Tally was going to go to Smoke and report everyone there. It turns out that Tally ends up loving it there and can't imagine going back. She brings the officials to Smoke on accident. I definitely enjoyed this book though and would recommend it to anyone.

3) A theme that I have seen appear in this book is relationships. Some of the relationships are very tight, like the relationship David has with his parents. Some of the relationships are weak though, like the relationship between Tally and her friend Peris. This theme mostly appears in the characters because all of the relationships happen between the main characters of the book. One place where I see this occur majorly is between Tally and Shay. Their friendship started when they were trying to re connect with their old friends who had turned pretty and they met up when they were trying to sneak back into Uglyville. They then became very close, but the relationship was weakened when Shay told Tally her plans of escaping to Smoke. Once Shay left, their friendship fell apart. When Tally joined her in Smoke, they started to regain their old relationship. Once David and Tally became friends, Tally seems to focus more on him. This is one main place where I see the theme of relationships appear.

4) My favorite character is Shay. When Tally comes to Smoke, she is so excited and glad that she has come to join her event though it is a huge risk to travel so far by herself. Shay doesn't suspect what Tally is up to, which shows how loyal she is to Tally. She doesn't think that Tally would ever do something like that. Not only does Shay include Tally but when Tally takes David from Shay and they become very close friends, she stays calm even though she doesn't like this. She liked David, but now that Tally has taken him from her, she feels alone because her two close friends are a couple now. I feel badly for her and that her two closest friends barely speak to her. Once Shay becomes pretty, she feels that it is her fault that Tally never got what she wanted, to become pretty. These are some reasons on why she is my favorite character.

5) My least favorite character is Tally. In my last blog post, I talked a lot about how Tally is only concerned about becoming pretty and not about her friendship. As the book has progressed though, I have learned a lot more about Tally. Not only is she only concerned about how she looks, but when she gets to Smoke she should have told the truth. I can understand how Tally would want to see what Smoke is like before she turns them in, but she should not have waited so long and then kept the transmitter. She should have told people who were more experienced so they could tell her how to disable the transmitter without bringing the officials to Smoke. This would have resolved a lot of problems and Az would then most likely still be alive. Tally is also my least favorite character because she doesn't understand that David needs space. David had a very close bond with his father so when he dies he is heart broken. Tally needs David because she is so shook up about everything that has just happened, but she doesn't realize that David needs to spend time alone with his mother. He needs space to be able to fully recover from the tragedy and Tally needs to mature and realize this.

6) The ending of this book was not what I expected to happen. I predicted that Tally and Shay would live in Smoke for the rest of their lives. Once Smoke was discovered, my predictions changed and I wasn't sure what was going to happen. When Tally is escaping from the officials and finds David hiding in a cave I knew that they would try with all of their power to save Smoke and rebuild it. This is what I predicted, but in the book Shay gets turned into a pretty forcefully by the officials and I never thought that this would happen.  Another thing that happened that I did not expect was for Az to die. It was so shocking and Westerfeld never gave any warning. I expected that both Maddy and Az would live and Tally would see them again once they came back from the ruins. Westerfeld did a very good job with making things very unpredictable and exciting.