Young Adult Book Reviews

Genre: Fantasy

Age Level: 12 and up

# of Pages: 417 p.

Series: Uglies, Pretties, Specials

RAC Book: Yes

In this fourth book of the Uglies series, Aya is living as an ugly after the complete reconstruction of their societies. Now that no one is forced to look the same or get brain lesions, the resources they had previously shared happily are in short supply as people want to expand their houses and towns. Now that everyone is thinking clearly they are not satisfied with what they have and continue to want more and bigger things. The community has established a system for earning merits in order for people to acquire items they want. One way they earn merits is by giving everyone a face rank and the more famous a person is the more merits he or she gets. The other way is to earn merits through schoolwork and volunteering.

Aya is desperate to be famous like her brother, so she joins a group of girls called the Sly Girls. The Sly Girls are very mysterious and no one knows anything about them, so Aya feels if she can report a story on them she will get famous. What Aya ends up uncovering is bigger than she could have ever imagined and she quickly comes to realize that fame is not what she imagined.

This fourth book answers many questions unanswered in the Specials such as what has happened to everyone now that The Specials have been relieved of their power. There are many interesting and exciting events in this book, but the final outcome of the story seemed quickly resolved and not as interesting as the previous three. This new community and its rules are not described until well into the book and students might be confused as to why fame is so important to Aya. The door was definitely left open for further books and I have no doubt that students will be eagerly awaiting them. Worth a read, but not the strongest in the series.