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Plot Summary
In the novel, Uglies, a girl named Tally wants to turn sixteen in order to be eligible to get the operation. The operation transforms the normal human body to a pretty body. She goes over the bridge to look at the Pretties, people who have gone through the operation. Tally is an Uglie since she looks like an average human.

After Tally goes over the bridge, she sneaks through the town to find her best friend, Peris. She finds Peris and they start to catch up on each other's lives. When Tally is about to leave, Peris makes her promise to stay out of trouble in order for her to do the operation. She promises and sneaks back to the uglie side of the area of land. When she is crossing the bridge back to the other side, she meets a girl named Shay. They become friends and bond while hover boarding. Tally tells Shay how excited she is to get the operation, but Shay feels the complete opposite.

Later, Shay comes to Tally with a plan to run away. She wants them to run away to the Smoke, a camp where everyone is accepted no matter their looks. Tally refuses the offer and Shay leaves that night. It is finally the day when Tally turns sixteen. She rides in a hovercraft to her operation. Soon after, Tally is not taken to her operation, but to Special Circumstances, a higher society that people didn't believe existed.

After Tally arrives, she is taken to see Dr. Cable, one of the advisers at Special Circumstances. Dr. Cable says that Tally must go after Shay and find the Smoke or stay ugly forever. Later Tally is deciding whether to betray her friend or stay ugly forever. But Tally chooses to betray her friend. She is supplied to travel to the Smoke. She finds the Smoke and learns new ways to survive and meet David's parents who are doctors. Instead of activating the locket, she burns her locket, which is a tracking chip for Special Circumstances to locate the Smoke.

The next day, Special Circumstances come and capture everyone. Tally and David escape and go back to save everyone at Special Circumstances. They successfully save everyone except David's dad, since he was killed when they were held at Special circumstances. They flee to the Ruins and set up another camp. David's mother stole the plans for the cure to how the operation makes the Pretties dumb. She needs to test it on a Pretty, but Shay refuses to try it. So Tally decides to go back and receive her operation in order for David's mother to try out the cure.

Major Themes
Uglies has many themes presented throughout the novel. Examples of these themes are body image, individuality, and environmental issues. Barbara, reviewer from BYU, also stated that "the novel addresses would we be happy if we could look perfect?" Scott and Dragoo, reviewers of Uglies, stated that "the dystrophic future [in Uglies] presents a socially stratified environment centred on beauty as an indicator of societal position." Hynes from the New York Times added to the topic of dystopian future by saying "dystopian fantasies are uniquely suited to the young adult reader." This saying that young people have a greater advantage to reading about different worlds because they can relate to the problems they have as a teenager to what happens in the story.

Style
Ross, reviewer from the University of Wellington, believed that "Westerfeld is dependent on how similar his precursor works are to his own text." Ross also stated that "the thesis shows that the use of literary influences is not straightforward as one author may, as Westerfeld and Pullman do, display different attitudes to and appropriate precursor texts in differing ways within one work." Little Willow, a blogger of book reviews, quoted Scott Westerfeld who said that "I'm not terribly interested in contemporary realism and I seem to "think" in trilogies."

Background
In an interview with Scott Westerfeld, Chicklish, a teen fiction site, asked him how he came up with the idea of Uglies. He responded by saying "the inspiration came from a friend who's dentist asked him to consider getting cosmetic surgery." Before Westerfeld even started to write novels, he was the son of a computer programmer for Univac. And this job helped him because he grew up familiar with the cutting edge of 1960s technology. Amanda Craig, a reviewer for children's books, said that "it is his prescient perception of how such inventions will lead to absolute loss pf privacy which has elicited as much fan-mail as the issue of how looks dominate our lives."

Reception
The novel, Uglies, has received much praise. Musher, a reviewer from Kliatt, stated that the book "asks engaging questions about the meaning of beauty, individuality, and betrayal." Young adult literature, students from Grand Valley State University, reviews agreed that it "is very intriguing and raises questions about our world today." Musher also stated that she "highly recommended for SF(Science Fiction) fans or anyone who likes a good, thoughtful adventure." Kirkus, a reviewer from kirkus reviews, agreed that "this introduction to a dystopic future promises an exciting series."