Pretties by Scott Westerfeld (American, 2005)

Summary:
This is the sequel to the novel Uglies. The story begins with Tally now being a pretty getting ready for a costume party with her friends, all of her memories of her life back in the Smoke, and everyone she knew had been erased, except for her friend Shay. Once she is at the party, she notices that a strange figure is following her everywhere. Soon enough she finds out that the figure is Craig, an old Smokie fellow which gives her a strange code: they have left something very important for her at Valentino Mansion and she has to be the only one who finds it, and as soon as he appears, he disappears. Tally tries to follow him but, on the way, she has an accident with her friend Peris and gets hit on the head. Due to her brave movements, Tally is accepted in a small group called the Crims. Their leader Zane greets her and begins to talk about Tally’s time in the smoke and about David, telling her that he actually met David and was about to escape but chickened out and proceeded with the operation, and now here and then he wonders if it would not have been better to have escaped. Tally confesses about the chat she had with Craig and about the gift, so Zane decides to help Tally get it. However, the present is located at the highest point in Valentino Mansion. After a lot of effort, they reach it and find there is a box inside which contains a letter directed to Tally from her old self urging her to take the pills to stop being pretty minded. Tally is afraid of the possible outcomes so they decide to divide the pills, one for Tally and one for Zane before they are caught by Special Circumstances. Special Circumstances knows that something had happened to them and now they are under surveillance. In the following days, Zane begins to experiment a lot of headaches and everyone else around them begins to notice that they have changed. Then Tally explains to the rest of the group what the pretty operation actually does to them and convinces them to run away. Everyone agrees but now Shay is remembering a lot of things from their time in the smoke, like Tally betraying them and stealing David away from her. They are no longer friends. Not only that, Dr. Cable is nearby and she also had noticed the change in Tally and offers her the chance to become part of Special Circumstances, saying that everyone is under surveillance since before the operation in order to discover if they can be helpful for them. Tally refuses the option. Now Tally and her friends have set their minds to escape from the new pretty town and the best way to do it is through a hot air balloon; however, at the last minute, Peris chickens out and delays the fall of Tally. Now Tally is at the outskirts of the city and faces a civilization that considers her a God since she is pretty. Later on, she finds out that that civilization is a kind of guinea pig to Special Circumstances to determine whether the operation helps or not to stop the violence among humans. Tally escapes from it and encounters once again the smokies, Zane, and her other Friends. Tally is now at the New Smoke, another location closer to the city of Pretties. Once in there Maddie, the mother of David and a doctor, nags Tally since the pills had to be taken together and not separated inasmuch as one pill destroys whatever they have in their mind in order to make them think like a pretty, and the other pill stops the nanobots from destroying the brain. Zane was the one that took the pill that destroyed his brain, that’s why he had those headaches, plus they discover that Tally has a really powerful mind since the pill she took couldn’t do anything on her, she has woken herself up just by doing very brave things like jumping from the hot air balloon. On top of that, now they have to run away since Special Circumstances has found them because they implanted a chip in Zane when he went to the doctor back in the city of pretties due to his headaches. Everyone runs away except for Tally and Zane; Zane is about to die and Tally feels guilty for causing him such damage and for giving away their location to Special Circumstances. To her utter surprise, Shay is the one that captures them since now she is part of Special Circumstances and promises Tally that she will never leave her again, meaning that Tally will also be part of Special Circumstances.

Another summary:
Tally is finally a pretty yet her memories are confusing. By day she easily forgets her worries as she parties with her new pretty friends on a daily basis. It is at one of these parties that Tally is approached by an ugly boy in disguise, who tells her he has left her a gift in one of the rooms. Afraid because the oddly familiar interloper intruded to the party specifically to talk to her, Tally flees back to her room and decides to forget the whole thing. However, upon waking up the next day, Tally still remembers this weird encounter and, puzzled by it, goes back to the party location from the previous night in order to look for her “present”. Tally’s new pretty friend Zane accompanies her and the two of them find the “gift”: a letter Tally herself had written to her future self before leaving the New Smoke, hence, before having the operation that turns sixteen-year olds into pretties. The thrill of this discovery clears her mind, bringing back her memories of the New Smoke and her promise of returning to her ugly friends. Attached to the letter are two pills which will cure Tally’s brain injury, which prompts Zane to beg Tally not to leave him behind as a dumb pretty; Tally agrees to share a pill with Zane and the two of them swallow the medicine. 
 Now cured, Tally and Zane spend the following months leading their group of pretty friends, "The Crims", to perform risky activities. These little acts of rebellion are a direct attack against the government; but they go unpunished due to Tally and Zane pretending that these actions help them to ‘keep bubbly.’ In reality, Tally and Zane have figured out that a constant flow of adrenaline helps them keep their heads clear and prevents them from believing pretty propaganda. Both pretties are planning to escape to the New Smoke in order to receive more dosages of the cure that would fully revert the damage left by their surgeries. Tally and her now boyfriend Zane also want to take The Crims with them, but they need them to share the same mindset in order for the plan to succeed. Another thing that keeps them from leaving are the bracelets that Special Circumstances made them wear in order to keep an eye on every single movement they do; since they cannot open the bracelets, the couple has come up with the idea of consuming the least amount of food so that they rapidly lose weight and just let the bracelets slip off. Tally has now another urgent concern: ever since they took the pills, Zane has been constantly experiencing the most crippling migraines; one of his episodes is so powerful that Tally has no option but to take Zane to a hospital. After his visit to the doctor, Zane experiences less pain, so he and Tally decide it is time to leave for the New Smoke. Their plan succeeds and those with whom they fled the city are given the cure. However, back at the New Smoke, Zane has become somewhat slow and spends much of his time in bed. David’s mother also notices Zane’s lethargy and confronts Tally, who admits having shared her dosage with Zane. Just in that moment, the alarms at the New Smoke go off and warn the New Smoke population that Special Circumstances is coming for the runaway pretties. David’s mother quickly explains that the pills had to be taken together for one contains nanos which ease and eventually cure the brain injuries, while the second pill makes the nanos self-destruct after they have finished their healing. Zane took the first pill, but without the second one, the nanos kept reproducing and ultimately damaged his brain severely. For unknown reasons, Tally was able to cure herself in spite of not taking the correct medicine dose. As the New Smokies (residents of the New Smoke) are leaving, David urges Tally to abandon Zane and come with them, but Tally refuses and chooses to stay behind to make sure Zane receives medical treatment. When Dr. Cable arrives, she reveals to Tally that she is responsible for implanting a tracker in Zane's back when he went to the hospital to seek treatment for his migraines. Additionally, Dr. Cable informs Tally she has recruited Shay, Tally’s former friend, as one of her new law enforcers. Cable claims she did try to save Zane back at the city hospital but explains Zane was far beyond cure.

Another summary:
In this novel, the protagonist called Tally, falls in love with Zane, one of the boys from the city. They lived in a city where just a few people could go in. There existed a perfect social order, but in a similar way, it was a totalitarian regime in which people only could live an entertaintment world without neither kind of action or spontaneity nor real action in people’s lives, since they were operated from the brain in order to avoid the feelings of anger and rage. One day, a group of rebels invites Tally to become part of a movement against this regime, since she finds a letter she wrote herself in the past, before her brain was intervened. The letter mentioned that there existed a cure for the brainwashing and it did work, so it could be provided to the entire city with the objective of ending the totalitarian regime implemented by “Special Circumstances”. Because of this, Tally decides to abandon the city along with Zane. In the end, she sadly fails because of the mistakes on her plans, being found by “Special Circumstances”, although she stills supports the possibility of rebellion could happen by other members, leaving an uncertain ending. This reflects the control that powerful people possess, and it shows that those people are in charge of keeping society submissive, controled, and commanded by orders, so that social order can be maintained. As a result, people have a monotonous and boring life, from which they try to escape even if that means taking the risk of being opressed by the authorities.

World view: The world portrayed in the story is an hypothetical society which seems to be worse than the one the author lives in.
Future projections: It’s a fearful prediction of the possible outcomes of today’s actions. Thus, it warns us against the terrible disasters (e.g. overpopulation, war, climate change) which would follow if there is no change in direction.
Ideology: The majority is oppressed by a ruling elite or an individual powergroup that come to dominate society to their own interests.
Characters, plot and writing style: The story features a rebellion against the adverse circumstances (revolutionaries may exploit newer technologies for these ends).
Classification: Non-dystopia