Third in the “Uglies” series by Scott Westerfeld, “Specials” takes us on a new journey with Tally Youngblood. At the end of “Pretties,” she had been taken in hand by Special Circumstances for thwarting their plans of controlling the populace through surgeries that would make everyone beautiful, but made them dumb and gullible. Tally fought hard to maintain her own will and her free agency, but Special Circumstances forced her to undergo another surgery, one that would rewire her brain and make her into one of them: a Special.
Specials have gone through the most outrageous transformation of all. Their bones are replaced with a type of ceramic that is light, and cannot break. They have feeds placed in their skin that connects them to the city computers and to each other, so they always know what’s going on. Their teeth are razor-sharp, as are their fingernails. Their reflexes are sharper, their strength is amazing. In short, they are hardly human anymore. Their brains have been programmed to stop anyone from being different, and to be ruthless in their quest to make sure everyone conforms to the rules.
Deep down, Tally knows this is not how she’s supposed to be, but the surgery has taken her over. It’s not until her friends from the Smoke, the place where those who have chosen to stay Ugly and not have the surgery, find her and remind her of who she was that she is able to start overcoming her programming. When she rises up in rebellion against everything she’s been programmed to do, she and her friends start a war that will bring the Pretty era to a crashing halt.
I have enjoyed this series so much. This is sci-fi at its finest, introducing us to a new world, a new way of thinking, and yet connecting with who we are and things that are familiar to us. This book is the most breathtakingly dangerous, and sets us up perfectly for the spin-off book “Extras,” which I will be reviewing next week.
(This book was published in 2006 by Simon and Schuster.)
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