Scott Westerfeld - Uglies Quadrilogy

Tally Youngblood lives in a society where all adolescents are "ugly" until they get their
"pretty" surgery. At sixteen, everyone gets a new face, new skin, new teeth, height adjustments and whatever else they need to be an average supermodel. Unfortunately for Tally, her best friend, Peris, just had his surgery and she still has 3 months to go. The worst part of this is that she isn't allowed to go see him, and though he can come see her, pretties rarely, if ever, go back to Uglyville. New Pretty Town is a nonstop party. Once teens become beautiful, all they can do is party and drink and have fun. Tally can't wait to join Peris in New Pretty Town...so she decides to sneak in to see him.

Though she can barely recognize the new Peris, she finds him and promises to be good so they can be together (in a total platonic way) once she turns sixteen. She almost gets caught, but escapes by pulling a fire alarm and jumping off the roof of a building in a bungee jacket. As she's making her way back to Uglyville, she meets Shay, another ugly who has sneaked across the river to New Pretty Town.

Shay and Tally teach each other many things, but Shay know of things that go beyond their world. She takes Tally out to the Rusty Ruins and tells her of people who do not live in their city, nor any other city. She and Tally get along so well, because they both have lost all of their friends. Shay claims that not all of her friends became pretty, some of them stayed ugly and escaped the city. The night before Shay's 16th birthday, she shows up at Tally's window asking her to come with her to The Smoke, the place in the wilderness where the mythical David lives. Tally refuses to go, she wants to be pretty.

On the morning of Tally's 16th birthday everything goes as planned. She has recycled all of her possessions, has her new face all picked out, gets picked up and driven to the hospital, and is sitting in the waiting room...where she waits, and waits, and waits. Finally, someone comes to her and leads her back down to a car and takes her to a place called Special Circumstances. Most people don't believe that Special Circumstances even exists, but Tally is there. Dr. Cable gives Tally an ultimatum either go to The Smoke with a locket that is a homing device when activated, or never be pretty. Does she really have a choice?

Uglies follows Tally on her journey to being pretty. Pretties finds Tally pretty and trying to discover the secret that keeps all pretties shallow and "bubbleheads". Again, she is trying to escape the city, though this time to escape being a bubblehead with her new man Zane. In Specials, Tally has been turned into a "terrible pretty" fighting machine. Her bones were all ground and replaced with indestructible plastic used to make aircrafts. Her teeth are sharp points and she's covered in tatoos. She likes the way she is, but is it really her, or has she been programmed to feel this way, yet again.

I have not read Extras, yet, as it does not follow Tally anymore. What I like about these three books is that it follows a very strong girl, who underestimates her strength, but is constantly trying to discover herself. Even after society tries to mold her to into the norm, she breaks free and becomes more. She is constantly fighting the norm, fighting mindlessness, fighting ignorance. There is a lot of social significance in these books. Do I think the world will be like this some day? No, but I do think they say a lot about how are world could turn out if we keep going the way we go. Some of the issues these books touch on are destroying the environment, plastic surgery, the influence of popular media, war, human experimentation, and probably others that I can't think of at the moment.

I will add to this post when I read Extras.