Uglies Summary

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Summary Scott Westerfield’s Uglies is a young adult dystopian novel that pits conformity against individuality, security against freedom, and betrayal against loyalty. In Uglies, all sixteen-year-old children are required to have cosmetic surgery that will make them “pretty.” Tally Youngblood cannot wait to become pretty, but her life changes when she meets Shay, a girl who wants to remain “ugly.” Tally lives in a dystopian future where everything is provided for by the city. In this post-scarcity society, everyone’s life is divided into five stages of physical change. Children are now known as “littlies” and are widely considered cute. Gangly and awkward, teenagers up to the age of sixteen are known as “uglies.” At age sixteen, uglies undergo cosmetic surgery that makes them pretty. There are three stages of life after people become pretty: new pretties, middle pretties, and late pretties. Some people argue that the pretty world is a false paradise, one that robs people of their individuality. These dissenters go on to argue that the only reason people like Tally feel ugly is because they are pressured to feel that way. People are taught to feel ashamed of their looks so that they would never question getting cosmetic surgery to fit in. However, if everyone were an ugly, perhaps no one would be considered ugly. However, the pretty society has perfectly good reasons for their laws. For one thing, the previous society, now known as the “Rusties,” is remembered as a wasteful culture, one that nearly destroyed the planet. Pretties live in isolation from nature so that they will not destroy it. Furthermore, the Rusties were often fighting with each other and often hated others simply because of skin color. Pretty life is simply much better for everyone and for the environment. Furthermore, pretties argue that is a genetic fact that people are predisposed to be
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