books:

	Specials (Uglies) Scott Westerfeld Simon Pulse, 2007 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 88 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The words have sent chills down Tally's spine since her days as a repellent, rebellious ugly. Back then Specials were a sinister rumor -- frighteningly beautiful, dangerously strong, breathtakingly fast. Ordinary pretties might live their whole lives without meeting a Special. But Tally's never been ordinary.

And now she's been turned into one of them: a superamped fighting machine, engineered to keep the uglies down and the pretties stupid.

The strength, the speed, and the clarity and focus of her thinking feel better than anything Tally can remember. Most of the time. One tiny corner of her heart still remembers something more.

Still, it's easy to tune that out -- until Tally's offered a chance to stamp out the rebels of the New Smoke permanently. It all comes down to one last choice: listen to that tiny, faint heartbeat, or carry out the mission she's programmed to complete. Either way, Tally's world will never be the same.

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Special Indeed

Ever since the first book(Uglies), I have loved Tally. I love how she can always be herself and escape what other people try to force her into being. They can't force her to look a certain way or be a bubblehead. She chose that on her own, to help her friend, Shay. This book, Specials, kind of made me sad. It seemed like Tally stopped caring about other people, and she did some pretty selfish things. But it was an amazing book. It shows just what society and social standards can do to people. It also shows how people can change for the better and the worst. I think this is a great book for teens.

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daughter loves this series

I haven't read these books but my 12 year old daughter loves them. Don't really understand, the series was a trilogy; uglies, pretties and specials but then there is a forth book called Extras. Of course my daughter loved that one too.


We are the Borg, you WILL be assimulated.

"Special Circumstances"
The words have sent chills down Tally's spine since her days as a repellent, rebellious ugly. Back then Specials were a sinister rumor- frighteningly beautiful, dangerously strong, breathtakingly fast."

And Tally is now one of them; in fact she is a part of a special group called Cutters, the best of the Specials, the most dangerous, the most crazy in some cases... And she now has a new choice to make to stay the way she is: a fast, deadly fighting machine or to be just normal pretty again, even if it means undoing everything that's been done to her and everything she's been through.

This was actually recommended to me by my mom, who was told about it from a friend at work (yay for being a high school English teacher), and she lent it to me. I liked this whole series a lot and I'm looking forward to looking into the fourth book of the trilogy (even the author still calls it a trilogy) Extras.

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the completion of the cycle

In "Specials", we see the final stage of the natural progression of the heroine Tally through the stages available to her: Ugly in the first novel, Pretty in the second, and now Special in the conclusion to the trilogy. Pretties undergo a mandatory surgery at 16 to become stunningly beautiful (albeit with an insidious side-effect). Specials are those Uglies and Pretties who have shown a predilection to live on the edge, and are thus recruited to become part of an elite force that ensures that the city is safe. Specials get their own surgery: their beauty becomes cruel, and their bodies become superhuman. Again, there is an insidious additional side effect to the Special surgery, which Tally discovers toward the end of the book.

Tally, as a Special, is tasked with finding the Smokies that have infiltrated her city and are sharing the secret of the true goal of the Pretty surgery. In the process, she discovers that her Special surgery has made her see Zane in an entirely different, and entirely unflattering, light: she can only focus on his weakness and how her new body is in every way superior to his. She decides that Zane must also become Special, and hatches a plan to convince the Special leader that Zane too deserves the distinction. Zane succeeds, but not without a high cost.

Throughout this book, we see Tally wrestle with her demons: her guilt over Zane's debilitating injuries from the previous novel, her guilt over the city's discovery of the New Smoke in the first novel, and her complex relationship with her best friend Shay that has unfolded and grown ever more messy in each novel. Her demons come together in unexpected ways. I don't think that it's fair to say that she wins the war with her demons, but they are dispensed in one way or another -- not always to Tally's benefit.

Westerfeld's Pretty dystopia is anything but pretty, and presents a captivating discussion about the nature of beauty and our desire to avoid conflict. He doesn't present a neat ending where everyone lives happily ever after. Specials is a satisfying ending to the trilogy.

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Best of the three

In the third installment of the "Uglies" series, Tally Youngblood has changed yet again. She's a Special, the elite police force of the city, imbued with super strength and speed, unbreakable and unbeatable. Perfect.
Yet Tally can't forget Zane, her boyfriend from her pre-special days, tragically damaged in his attempt to reverse the mind-dulling effects of becoming "Pretty"--damage Tally still blames herself for.
Now Tally is once again torn between allegiance to her best friend and fellow Special Shay, and feelings of love and responsibility for Zane.
This was probably my favorite (so far, anyway, since I haven't yet read "Extras") of the "Uglies" series. In the previous two books, I had a lot of trouble "bonding" with Tally and relating to the decisions she made. But the emotional climate in this book seemed much more plausible, and Westerfield's dialogue shines. My only complaint is that the action scenes were a little too complex--you almost needed to sketch a diagram to keep up.
Jacquelyn Sylvan, Author, Surviving Serendipity

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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