The Ugly beauty’s \
above the Pretty ugly, \
nature’s magnetized
. Uglies . HaikuPrajna . Book Review
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Hello reader,
Reading the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld at April's request, and I enjoyed the first book more than what was expected!
The setting was based on the segregation of Uglies like Tally Youngblood from the Pretties living in New Pretty Town, whom people like Tally were in eager anticipation for the surgical procedure to be transformed into.
The history of the world was shaped by two disasters, one being an orchid epidemic that stripped the soil of moisture which created deserts, in metaphor for the Pretties, the other disaster having been a bacterial plague that burned the world's oil supplies.
This story was full of cool science fiction concepts, like the prominent anti-grav technology in both city infrastructure and out in the sprawling wilderness-ruins, with hovercraft abusing natural magnetic fields. The plot revolved around a false-reality narrative involving the Pretty-operation’s true purpose, a covert brain surgery upon the vast majority of Pretties to subdue conflict and difference of opinion.
Themes and philosophy were somewhat heavy handed, but the general messages of the gift of raw unaltered history, and the true beauty of nature against the manufactured beauty of the ideal got handled well.
Concepts such as somebody like David having never been in a city can make one stop to think. At the end of the book, Tally's final decision had come off as real sweet, too.
That said, there were some parts that just have to be put up with unless you are a fan of the genre; stuff like an abrupt boy drama and the choice of hoverboarding as the choice of transportation for the protagonist highlighted the juvenile-youth factor.
Had also thought that the brushings with topics like dysphoria could have been handled better, but their inclusion is an inevitable part of the kind of story being told here. Minor grievances like mid-narrative contractions and jarring chapter breaks or scene transitions were forgiven with little effort. Hoping that the sequels improved on those points.
Uglies was a romp through the dangers of maladaptive perfectionism with manipulative Pretties forcing their will upon those described as Ugly. Scott Westerfeld used this landscape to explore the consequences of unchecked idealism with a focus on the guilt, obsession and obligations of the choices we make.
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Thank you for reading,
Until next time!
Allen W. McLean
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These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection.
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