I apologise for not informing you before now, but I'm currently on a rather serious blogging break as I'm trying hard to fully focus on my writing, though I have in fact plenty of great blog-post ideas waiting in my drafts folder. By the way, recently I was forced to get a twitter account. I'm not sure how long I'll keep it but you, dear reader, are welcome to follow me
here, or add me
@Bookaholic786. Today I received an e-mail from google informing me that I have quite a few comments waiting for my approvals and replies. So I thought I'd briefly pop back on to my blog for you dear reader, and update you also on what I've been reading lately.
So in the 24 hours of a day, the time that I have allocated to fictional reading has been occupied by the
Uglies Quartet, a series by
Scott Westerfeld (a new 'favourite writer'), recommended to me by
John Green, (also a writer but unfortunately not a favourite). I'm finished with the first three books in the Quartet and have just started the fourth one
Extras. But seeing how the central character in the last book is different to the first three, I thought I'd write some mini reviews for the ones I have read.
Uglies
About three hundred years from now, in the much flooded North America, human civilization has dramatically changed. In a manner similar to
The Hunger Games, our current industrialized age bought about its own ruin and downfall. In
Uglies, humanity lives in small self-governing hi-tech cities, isolated and cut-off from the rest world, where it is mandatory to have plastic surgery on your 16th birthday to turn you from an ugly to a pretty. Looking out from her dorm window, Tally Youngblood has always looked forward to becoming a pretty and moving to New Pretty Town, at the centre of her city, where new pretties party all night and always have the best of everything. That is until she meets Shay, two months before they both turn 16. Drawn together by their cleverness and sense of adventure, they soon form a strong friendship. But Shay has rather heretical and radical ideas on what it really means to be "pretty" and "normal". So when Shay runs away, just a week before the operation, leaving Tally with cryptic instructions, Tally is blackmailed by Special Circumstances into following Shay across the wild; in order to find her and betray the rebel group known as "The Smoke"...
There is not much more I want to say about this book, other than that reading this story was like flying a hoverboard over a rusty old rollercoaster, with so many twists and turns, which I never saw coming. It kept me hooked for hours on end. I was hardly able to do anything productive until I had turned the last page.
***
Pretties
Life as a new pretty has been somewhat disappointing so far for Tally Youngblood, though she can't really put a finger on what's missing. And for some reason, her subconscious is haunted by the cruel-pretty faces of the grey suited specials. However, there is one thing she's really looking forward to, and that's joying a clique known as the Criminals (aka the Crims), which already includes her best friends Shay and Peris. But there's something about the Crims' tricky and enchanting leader, Zane. Unlike most pretties, he loves to hear stories from their ugly days and just being around him makes Tally feel more bubbly and clear-headed. And there's something about Zane that brings back memories from her past that she had thought the operation had gotten rid of permanently...
My opinions on this book are rather divided. I loved the running metaphor of the beautiful princess locked in the tower, and how the reoccurring dream was used to summarize and make sense of what was happening in the story. But the way the pretties spoke and their "pretty-talk" / happy-slang I found utterly annoying, because no one in their right mind would talk with that silly limited vocabulary. Then again, I think that's the whole point: they're suppose to be annoying and not in their right minds. And without giving away any major plot points; when I actually finished the book I was so full of despair, anger and frustration that I threw it across the room. I so badly wanted to go up to the author, take him by the shoulders, and shake him vigorously while yelling "HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?????!!!!!!" This in itself is rather astonishing as I'm known to be a rather calm and "bubbly" person, more prone to smiling than yelling, especially at complete strangers. But the mere fact that Westerfeld was able to provoke such emotions from me means that he is a really good writer. Because, in the few short days that it took me to get to this point, I head quite come to care for his characters.
***
Specials
I'm not going to write a summary paragraph for this book because, dear reader, if you haven't read this series already then a summary of this book would be a spoiler for the first two books. So instead I'll just tell you what I thought of it.
As you can imagine, I was rather reluctant to start this novel, given all that had happened by the end of
Pretties. I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to see what Tally would become next. But being the completionist that I am, I read it anyway. And I loved it. I will honestly admit that there were times when I was so aggravated with Tally and the author that I just had to close the book, wishing I'd never started the series. And yet, it was the the writing itself, the plot and the need to know what happens next, that kept bringing me back the moment I closed the book. Now I'm quite glad to say that it was well worth it in the end. Because the ending, the last few pages themselves, are so rewarding and so
apt that
Specials has found a home amongst my "special" favourite books.
***
I don't really listen to music any more but there is this one song,
In Between by Linkin Park, that quite reminds me of Tally Youngblood's situation throughout these three novels, a bit like a running theme, but one that she manages to overcome. If you, dear reader, are like me and not really interested in music, then for you I'll end this post with the lyrics from
In Between.
Nida
In Between
Let me apologize to begin with
Let me apologize for what I'm about to say
