The Uglies Part 2

So, for the first part of the book, all we see are the Pretties and Uglies.  Then, on the day of Tally's surgery, she was told there was a problem and she was introduced to the Specials.  They are pretty but kind of pretty in a scary way.  On page 104, Tally is talking about the Specials and her encounter with Dr. Cable from Special Circumstances.  "The woman was a cruel pretty.  Her nose was aquiline, her teeth sharp, her eyes a nonreflective gray.  Her voice had the same slow, neutral cadence as a bedtime book.  But it hardly made Tally sleepy.  An edge was hidden in the voice, like a piece of metal slowly marking glass."  The Specials are people that rarely ever interact with the Pretties or Uglies.  They are the people that are just talked about, and a lot of people consider them more of a myth.  They are blamed when things out of the ordinary happen.  Peris comes to visit Tally after everyone finds out about her little visit with the Specials.  He says, "Specials are like gremlins; you blame them when anything weird happens.  Some people think they're totally bogus, and no one I know has actually seen a Special."
I am trying to figure out what group of people the Specials represent in our culture.  The Pretties represent the people obsessed with beauty and perfection and will sacrifice anything to be considered pretty by everyone, where the Uglies represent the people who do not care what others believe and are willing to stand up for themselves and things that truly matter.  The Uglies are the outsiders, the plain ole normal people that are not considered special to many people but value the beauty on in the inside per say.  So are the specials people that care about their appearance but also prioritize their lives and are not obsessed with perfection and beauty?

The Uglies Part 1

So far I really do like this book.  I think it is really interesting that our society is classified as the "Rusties."  I thought it might be possible to connect this with the effects of technology on society.  Basically, I think the book is implying that if societies do not continue to improve and develop and better with technology, so the Rusties did not improve and develop with technology, which is why the Shay and Tally visit the ruins of the Rusties.  There may also be a connection between technology and freedom of expression and obsession with appearances.  The increase in technology capabilities, such as plastic surgery, lead to the obsession of appearances and basically this world and separation of the Uglies and Pretties.  This obsession has lead to the decrease in freedom of expression.  All the Pretties look very similar, and the teens have no say in what they look like.  Tally reveals all this when she is trying to convince Shay to make what she could possibly look like after the surgery when all Shay wants to do is go hoverboarding.  The doctors that perform the surgery decide what look each teen gets.  The authorities, whoever they are, do their best to keep these two worlds separate.  The Pretties are not supposed to interact with the Uglies, especially not in person.  The Uglies are punished if they are found in the Pretties Town.  The decline of freedom of expression leads to the decline of personal rights.  The Pretties basically live the care-free, no responsibilities, party life, while the Uglies have more strict schedules and live in a much more dull world.  The Uglies actually have responsibilities and work that they have to do.  They are punished and discriminated against for not being pretty, even though they cannot be pretty until a certain age.

The Uglies

I have decided to still stick with the Uglies to read. For some reason, it just appeals to me more than the other books, even though I am sure that all of them are great books.  I think that the fact that I have heard so many good comments about it from people who read it for fun has probably influenced my choice. No matter the reason, I am reading the Uglies!