Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (American, 2005)

Summary:
Tally Youngblood is an Ugly. Then again, everybody is one before their sixteenth birthday, at which time they are surgically enhanced and are welcomed to live in New Pretty Town. All Tally wants is to become a Pretty and reunite with her childhood friend Peris. Shortly before her most awaited birthday, Tally meets Shay, another Ugly who shares her day of birth. Both girls quickly become inseparable, even when Shay begins to constantly censure Pretty life. A week before turning 16, Shay asks Tally to run away with her to the Smoke, a place in the wilderness where they can be Ugly together; Tally refuses to accompany her friend but swears not to tell where Shay went nor to share the cryptic directions Shay left her in case Tally changed her mind. When her birthday arrives Tally is not operated though she is taken to Special Circumstances headquarters, where the abominable Dr. Cable urges her to decipher Shay’s directions, get to the Smoke, and betray its location for Special Circumstances to destroy it once and for all. If Tally refuses to do so, she is to live the rest of her life as an Ugly. Tally refuses at first but gives in after several miserable days. Dr Cable provides Tally with a tracker she has to activate once she reaches the Smoke; then, Cable’s troops will follow the signal and wipe out the smokies. 
 After many dangers Tally arrives at last to the Smoke, where she reunites with a thrilled Shay. Tally meets David, the lead recruiter for the Smoke and Shay’s love interest. Tally notices Shay is so happy in this new that she finds herself unable to activate Dr. Cable’s device. Instead, Tally spends some days as a Smokie, finding life without technology hard but much more rewarding that her previous experiences all the same. David, son of the founders of the Smoke, quickly falls in love with Tally and starts neglecting Shay. David takes Tally to meet his parents, who were doctors back in New Pretty Town but fled the city once they discovered that during the beautifying procedures they were also required to lacerate their patients’ brains to make them less intelligent and more submissive. This revelation leads Tally to accept her feelings for David and to accept a future by his side as an Ugly. She decides to destroy Dr. Cable’s device so they can never be found. When Tally wakes up the next morning she comes to a Smoke under attack, from which she escapes unscathed. After a prudent amount of time, Tally returns to the ruins of her new home and reunites with David. Both concoct a plan to raid Special Circumstances and rescue the Smokies, among them, David’s parents. The first part of their plan is successful but once in the cells they find no trace of Shay or David’s father. When Tally finally finds Shay she is heartbroken to discover she has already been transformed into a Pretty; after the group deduces that David’s father has been murdered, they flee and start a new Smoke. David’s mother reveals to Tally that she knows Tally was sent to locate them and she unwittingly betrayed the Smokies when trying to destroy the tracker, which immediately sent a signal to Dr. Cable. Trying to make amends for David’ father’s death, Tally volunteers to be a test subject for the laceration antidote David’s parents have created. Tally agrees to take Shay back to the City and to allow the doctors to operate her so that in the following weeks the Smokies come to rescue her and giver her the antidote.

Another summary:
In the society where Tally lives, people are divided into pretties and uglies. When uglies become 16 years old, they undergo a surgery to become pretties and have a happy life. Tally’s friend, Peris, is now 16; he has just been operated, has moved to New Pretty Town, at the other side of the city, where pretties live free of responsibilities. Tally gets out of Uglyville to go to New Pretty Town looking for Peris, then she meets Shay, another ugly who tells her about her dream of escaping the surgery, something that she cannot agree with. A little time before Shay’s 16th birthday, she escapes to the Smoke, a place where everyone who does not want to have the surgery goes.
 This has nothing to do with Tally’s plans about her own future, until her surgery date, when she is arrested and taken to Special Circumstances. There she meets Dr. Cable, who interrogates her about her relationship with Shay, tells her that there are other six friends of Shay's who disappeared the same day as her and ask her to help find them. If Tally does not accept, she will never become pretty. After talking to Peris and being reminded by him about the promise they made to be pretty together, Tally ends up accepting.
 
 She goes to the Smoke, where she knows Shay is, knowing that the only way to get what she wants is betraying her friend. She finds Shay and her friend David with a group of other fugitives. When Shay and David take her to the Smoke, they teach her about life in their community, from their daily routines to their organization and work. Although she gets involved in a love triangle with Shay and David, what she must care about is the suspicion which her coming to the community arouses.
 
 So, while she tries not to be discovered, she gets used to lifestyle in the Smoke and starts to like being there. This makes her have doubts about whether she should activate or not the pendant she was given to be traced. She learns about the world before the enactment of surgeries and discovers, thanks to David’s parents (founders of the Smoke), the truth about being pretty; the surgery does not just make people look beautiful, but also brainwashes them so their minds become “pretty” too. 
 
 After this discovery, Tally decides to quit being a spy and throws the pendant to the fire thinking she would get rid of it, but instead of it, the pendant is activated and Special Circumstances locates the Smoke. They get there and arrest the whole community to take them to a place called the rabbit pen. Dr. Cable sends Tally to get back the pendant she threw and Tally takes it as chance to escape. While she hides from Special Circumstances in a cave, she finds out that David is hidden there too and they start planning going to the rabbit pen to get the whole community out.
 
 When they get to Special Circumstances, they realize that Shay has become a pretty and take the chance to steal Dr. Cable’s information about surgery’s reversion. They also get to break the community free and escape out of the city. David’s father dies while trying to revert the surgery effects, but his mother keeps trying now that she has Dr. Cable’s information. Finally, Tally reveals that it was her fault that Special Circumstances found the Smoke. As a sign of her regret, she goes to the city along with Shay with the purpose of finding the cure to the surgery’s effects; her plan is to be caught by Dr. Cable to give her the surgery and later, when they get the cure David should look for her and sumministrate the cure on her too. When Tally and Shay get to the city, Tally is seized quikly, and the first thing she asks is to become pretty.

Another summary:
About 300 years ago an unknown bacteria infected petroleum making it unstable. This caused paranoia in society since everyone was dependent on it. The survivors decided to stay away from it and rebuild society. Now, the government provides everything the citizens need, taking just what is necessary from nature. They have decided that when a person turns sixteen years old, he or she is going to have a medical surgery where they will be made pretty; this means that they are going to have symmetrical proportions, stronger teeth, and would look young for as long as possible. Once they have been turned pretties they are accepted in New Pretty Town where they can live a carefree life. 
 Our main character is Tally Youngblood, a girl who is about to turn sixteen and is looking forward to the operation, since all her friends have already turned into pretties. One night she decides to go from Uglyville to New Pretty Town to meet her best friend Peris. However, things go wrong and Tally has to run away. In her escape she meets Shay, another girl who also went to the city to visit her friends, but, since it is forbidden and the alarm rings, she has to hide. Both return to Uglyville and they begin a friendship; soon after that they find out that they share birthdays. One day before their birthday, Shay mentions to Tally the idea of not going through the operation but to run away and be always an ugly along with some others in a place called the Smoke. Shay says that she has a contact there named David and that there they can be happy. Tally refuses her proposal but Shay does run away and leaves Tally a map to find the Smoke in case she changes her mind. The following day, when Tally is about to get the operation, Dr. Cable and other people named Special Circumstances stop the process because they suspect that Tally knows where Shay is, and they even threaten her to not allow her being operated if she does not help them. Tally agrees to help them find Shay and the others: the only thing she has to do once she finds them is to push a heart pendant which they give her. Tally sets to the adventure and finally finds her friends and the Smoke; however, she does not activates the pendant. Little by little she begins to talk with the rest of the community, specially with David, Shay’s boyfriend and the contact between Smokies and Uglies, and they begin to fall in love. David takes Tally to meet his parents, who used to be doctors in New Pretty Town, and there they explain to her that the operation is not only to be pretty on the outside, but they operate your brain in order to make you more compliant. Tally makes up her mind and decides to not return and destroys the pendant in a bonfire. The following day they wake up with the surprise that the Smoke is under attack by Special Circumstances. Tally meets with Dr. Cable and she explains to her that if something happened to the pendant they would go to the last position it registered, so Dr. Cable asks Tally about the pendant as she suspects the girl for treason. Tally runs away and hides in a cave where David is also hiding. They both plan a way to get to the city and free all their friends and family. Once in the city, they find out that Shay has already been operated and the rest are under arrest. Shay helps them to get to the others and together they run away. Once they are safe and sound, Maddie, David’s mother, tells them that there is a way to stop being pretty-minded, but it is dangerous. She faces Tally, since she knows that she was the on to blame for them being found. Tally accepts her guilt and decides that she will return to the city and then the Smokies will contact her and give her the cure to being pretty-minded.

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