This series is jam-packed with excitement! Tally is a badass. Love all the emotions involved with David, Shay & Zane. The scenes in the wilderness with the tribe were very interesting. On to the next book!
Pretties: Uglies, Book 2
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars | 3,159 ratings
Price: 17.05
Last update: 09-06-2024
About this item
In Tally's world your 16th birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellant Ugly into a stunningly attractive Pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise, where your only job is having a really good time. Just before her birthday, Tally discovered that turning Pretty comes with a terrible price. She vowed to accept the operation but with the understanding that her friends on the outside would rescue her and let her be the guinea pig for the experimental and highly dangerous cure they're developing.
But in the second book of the Uglies series, Tally's Pretty. And everything's changed. The new, Pretty Tally is totally happy right where she is. She doesn't think she needs any kind of cure at all. When someone from her Ugly life shows up with a message, Tally has a hard time listening. Did she really promise to give all this up? Is she bound by a promise she made when she was a different person? If there is anything left of the old Tally, how will she fight her way out to keep her word and help her friends?
Top reviews from the United States
Kari K5.0 out of 5 stars
Love
Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2024
Fantasy Lover4.0 out of 5 stars
A Well-Crafted Sequel
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2012
The true sign of good writing is when the author makes you feel frustrated at the characters, fed-up, or even furious or irate. The fact that the author is willing to play with those types of emotions, even knowing that it could cause you to possibly hate the book, is a true sign of a good author. Scott Westerfield definitely does this in this book.
PRETTIES starts off a few weeks after where UGLIES left off. Tally Youngblood is now a pretty and is loving every minute of it. She completely forgots some aspects of her Ugly life, and is living happily, yet unaware in Prettytown. Along with her best friend Shay, Tally is now a member of the Crims, a gang of Pretties who were "bad" back in their Ugly past. The Crims are led by the smoldering Zane, who (obviously) becomes Tally's love interest later in the book. But Tally's perfect Pretty world is turned upside down when an old friend from the (now destroyed) Smoke comes with a message for her from David, a past love interest whom Tally barely remembers. The result of this leads to Tally and Zane finding a mysterious bottle of pills that they believe can make them "bubbly". And at first, it does. But then Zane starts getting crippling headaches, Shay starts cutting herself, and everything that Tally once believed in she must now reconsider. Many favorite characters from UGLIES come back, along with some new ones, too, and PRETTIES is sure to leave you (once again) wanting more.
This is possibly one of the only books I've read in which my favorite aspect of it is also the part of it that I hated the most. In this case, its the characters. For the most part, Scott Westerfield develops his characters quite well, and I thoroughly enjoyed the secondary characters. The three characters that were devloped the best, however, were also the three that I hated the most: Tally, Zane, and Shay. For Tally, I ended up hating her in the beginning for letting the lesions get to her, and then hating her in the end again because of the hurtful way she treats David (whom I love). Zane as a whole just bugged me from start to finish: the way he craftily took over the "hero" role, the way he stole Tally's heart without even bothering to think about the feelings she had for David, and his tagging along with Tally which resulted in both of them getting captured. I think most of us who have read the book can agree that, in the end, if Zane had made just one good decision when it was really needed, Tally would've ended up in a much better situation. However, he was neccesary to the story, and I credit him for that. And lastly, Shay. Ever since she became Pretty and dragged Tally into it with her, I've despised that girl. She lets her jealousy of Tally get to her, and ends up going down, yet always bringing Tally with her. If Tally's life would've been marginally better if Zane had made good decisions, imagine how much better her life would be if Shay hadn't gotten so jealous. My blood boils when I think of all she did to Tally, especially in PRETTIES.
Overall (21.5/25):
Plot: 4.5/5- At first it was pretty predicitable, but there were many twists and turns later in the book.
Characters: 5/5- Scott Westerfield experiments with his characters so well in this book! I loved hating them!
Setting: 5/5- I especially enjoyed the primitive world which Tally crash-lands into- it was so creative yet made perfect sense!
Romance: 2/5- Tally's romance with Zane was very predictable, but the way she ends up hurting David (sob) was not.
Teenage Factor (because I am one): 5/5- Any girl (or boy, although its more geared towards girls) who has read UGLIES will not want to miss this one.
PRETTIES starts off a few weeks after where UGLIES left off. Tally Youngblood is now a pretty and is loving every minute of it. She completely forgots some aspects of her Ugly life, and is living happily, yet unaware in Prettytown. Along with her best friend Shay, Tally is now a member of the Crims, a gang of Pretties who were "bad" back in their Ugly past. The Crims are led by the smoldering Zane, who (obviously) becomes Tally's love interest later in the book. But Tally's perfect Pretty world is turned upside down when an old friend from the (now destroyed) Smoke comes with a message for her from David, a past love interest whom Tally barely remembers. The result of this leads to Tally and Zane finding a mysterious bottle of pills that they believe can make them "bubbly". And at first, it does. But then Zane starts getting crippling headaches, Shay starts cutting herself, and everything that Tally once believed in she must now reconsider. Many favorite characters from UGLIES come back, along with some new ones, too, and PRETTIES is sure to leave you (once again) wanting more.
This is possibly one of the only books I've read in which my favorite aspect of it is also the part of it that I hated the most. In this case, its the characters. For the most part, Scott Westerfield develops his characters quite well, and I thoroughly enjoyed the secondary characters. The three characters that were devloped the best, however, were also the three that I hated the most: Tally, Zane, and Shay. For Tally, I ended up hating her in the beginning for letting the lesions get to her, and then hating her in the end again because of the hurtful way she treats David (whom I love). Zane as a whole just bugged me from start to finish: the way he craftily took over the "hero" role, the way he stole Tally's heart without even bothering to think about the feelings she had for David, and his tagging along with Tally which resulted in both of them getting captured. I think most of us who have read the book can agree that, in the end, if Zane had made just one good decision when it was really needed, Tally would've ended up in a much better situation. However, he was neccesary to the story, and I credit him for that. And lastly, Shay. Ever since she became Pretty and dragged Tally into it with her, I've despised that girl. She lets her jealousy of Tally get to her, and ends up going down, yet always bringing Tally with her. If Tally's life would've been marginally better if Zane had made good decisions, imagine how much better her life would be if Shay hadn't gotten so jealous. My blood boils when I think of all she did to Tally, especially in PRETTIES.
Overall (21.5/25):
Plot: 4.5/5- At first it was pretty predicitable, but there were many twists and turns later in the book.
Characters: 5/5- Scott Westerfield experiments with his characters so well in this book! I loved hating them!
Setting: 5/5- I especially enjoyed the primitive world which Tally crash-lands into- it was so creative yet made perfect sense!
Romance: 2/5- Tally's romance with Zane was very predictable, but the way she ends up hurting David (sob) was not.
Teenage Factor (because I am one): 5/5- Any girl (or boy, although its more geared towards girls) who has read UGLIES will not want to miss this one.
Yrp5.0 out of 5 stars
It was bubbly!
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2012
I'm laughing reading the reviews because I can see that the use of the word "bubbly" and "bogus" have severly annoyed people and I understand, but I actually didnt mind the terms.
I'm an adult reader but found myself doing an incredibly brain-missing thing yesterday and of course "brain-missing" was the term that jumped into my head! Now wasn't that totally bogus. Slang is funny that way...it kind of catches you thinking it or saying it without realizing it.
For the vapid nature of the characters and the degree to which they were just supposed to look pretty and not think or do anything more I could imagine their vocabulary would have words like bubbly in it to mean a plethora of things, depending on their whims. That really does make sense to me and I thought it was clever. Why expand your brain when you are pretty, just use a simple easy-to-reach-for word to cover what you want to say and expect others to understand, but even if they dont, they wont mind because you are so pretty they'll agree with whatever comes out of your mouth (e.g. "That's Hot" and we all know which "pretty" that one comes from). I get it, life's fun and it's time to go to the next party anyhow...(reminds me of "Breakfast at Tiffany's"...it's "time for a drink").
Okay...now to the things that bug me...
I know it's a book, but the whole operation thing was simply not plausable. I was thinking that it would come to be revealed that they were actually getting brain transplants or something because grinding bones down and re-seeding skin is a little bit far-fetched for me and I love sci-fi.
As with any post-apocolyptic world, a society is going to try to fix what it saw the errors with the previous society and come up with a new a better way of running things (like removing the desire to disagree and start wars), but then their society too has it's pros and cons, which is why books exist to stretch our minds...
Still not yet finished reading Pretties but I'm enjoying the ride and look forward to the rest of the books in the series.
I'm an adult reader but found myself doing an incredibly brain-missing thing yesterday and of course "brain-missing" was the term that jumped into my head! Now wasn't that totally bogus. Slang is funny that way...it kind of catches you thinking it or saying it without realizing it.
For the vapid nature of the characters and the degree to which they were just supposed to look pretty and not think or do anything more I could imagine their vocabulary would have words like bubbly in it to mean a plethora of things, depending on their whims. That really does make sense to me and I thought it was clever. Why expand your brain when you are pretty, just use a simple easy-to-reach-for word to cover what you want to say and expect others to understand, but even if they dont, they wont mind because you are so pretty they'll agree with whatever comes out of your mouth (e.g. "That's Hot" and we all know which "pretty" that one comes from). I get it, life's fun and it's time to go to the next party anyhow...(reminds me of "Breakfast at Tiffany's"...it's "time for a drink").
Okay...now to the things that bug me...
I know it's a book, but the whole operation thing was simply not plausable. I was thinking that it would come to be revealed that they were actually getting brain transplants or something because grinding bones down and re-seeding skin is a little bit far-fetched for me and I love sci-fi.
As with any post-apocolyptic world, a society is going to try to fix what it saw the errors with the previous society and come up with a new a better way of running things (like removing the desire to disagree and start wars), but then their society too has it's pros and cons, which is why books exist to stretch our minds...
Still not yet finished reading Pretties but I'm enjoying the ride and look forward to the rest of the books in the series.
M5.0 out of 5 stars
great reading for moms and adolescents
Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2007
This review is especially for any parents checking up on books for their young adolescents. I checked online reviews before buying "Uglies" when my 6th grader last year said her English teacher recommended it. I was reacting to the name. My daughter and I both read Uglies and Pretties, when she was in 6th grade, and she read Specials and now wants Extras. I especially recommend this for parents and young teens to read together for a number of reasons:
1. It's very entertaining!
2. Fast reading for adults in particular - looks long, but I read it in 3-4 hours when I woke up in the middle of the night once.
3. Nothing negative or too adult for young teens or pre-teens.
4. Raises some great ideas for discussion that are both simple and complicated in their power (a way to solve lots of society's problems that takes away personal liberties, etc). Not difficult reading or thinking, but still gets across in an entertaining way these complicated issues of all utopias.
5. Ages 10-16, but once I started reading, I couldn't stop reading because it was moving along with so much excitement. It would make a great movie.
6. If you or your child liked The Giver, you'd like this even better. This fleshes out the story quite a bit more and moves very quickly through drama.
1. It's very entertaining!
2. Fast reading for adults in particular - looks long, but I read it in 3-4 hours when I woke up in the middle of the night once.
3. Nothing negative or too adult for young teens or pre-teens.
4. Raises some great ideas for discussion that are both simple and complicated in their power (a way to solve lots of society's problems that takes away personal liberties, etc). Not difficult reading or thinking, but still gets across in an entertaining way these complicated issues of all utopias.
5. Ages 10-16, but once I started reading, I couldn't stop reading because it was moving along with so much excitement. It would make a great movie.
6. If you or your child liked The Giver, you'd like this even better. This fleshes out the story quite a bit more and moves very quickly through drama.