Kissing the Dead - A Cautionary Tale

Title: I Kissed a Zombie, and I Liked It
Author: Adam Selzer
Publisher: Delacourt Press
Publication Date: January 2010
Reading Level: 16 and up

Synopsis: (from Goodreads) -
Algonquin “Alley” Rhodes, the high school newspaper’s music critic, meets an intriguing singer, Doug, while reviewing a gig. He’s a weird-looking guy—goth, but he seems sincere about it, like maybe he was into it back before it was cool. She introduces herself after the set, asking if he lives in Cornersville, and he replies, in his slow, quiet murmur, “Well, I don’t really live there, exactly. . . .”

When Alley and Doug start dating, Alley is falling so hard she doesn’t notice a few odd signs: he never changes clothes, his head is a funny shape, and he says practically nothing out loud. Finally Marie, the school paper’s fashion editor, points out the obvious: Doug isn’t just a really sincere goth. He’s a zombie. Horrified that her feelings could have allowed her to overlook such a flaw, Alley breaks up with Doug, but learns that zombies are awfully hard to get rid of—at the same time she learns that vampires, a group as tightly-knit as the mafia, don’t think much of music critics who make fun of vampires in reviews. . . .

My Review:
First and foremost - "I Kissed a Zombie" is a parody of "Twilight."  Now, I've made no secret that I severely dislike the "Twilight" books (for many reasons, not the least of which it offers up a perverted version of one of my - and the author's - core religious beliefs and that didn't sit well with me at all. Again, another rant for another day), so this sounded intriguing.  Anything that pokes fun at "Twilight," I like to give it a shot. I actually met Adam Selzer briefly when he was on a teen author panel at the Utah Library Association Conference back in May.  I didn't get to speak with him for very long, but it was long enough that I wanted to fork out $8 for his book and read it.

Alley Rhodes is no Bella Swan (or any other main female character from a paranormal romance novel, for that matter).  Alley is witty, sarcastic and she constantly makes fun of all the girls in her high school who are dating vampires.  Did I mention that, in this world, all the vampires have come out and made themselves a regular part of society?  Which means, of course there are going to be tons of high school girls falling over themselves to get a piece of that undead action. [SARCASM WARNING!] Because, as we all know, high school girls are entirely that stupid.  That's the kind of sarcasm Alley and her friends, the Vicious Circle (who also run the school newspaper), employ on a constant basis.  And I have to admit, it's actually quite funny.

Then Alley becomes enamored with Doug, a guest singer for a band Alley is reviewing for her column in the school paper.  He sings all her favorite songs and actually sings them well (Alley has a thing for dead gay singers from the 1930s) and she thinks that he's actually sincere about being a goth - not just these pseudo-goths that are just goth because it's suddenly cool on account of all the smokin' hot vampires around.

Another thing I found hilarious was, after Alley discovers Doug is a zombie, her debate with herself whether or not to become a zombie.  She contemplates things like the fact that she'd have to drink embalming fluid every four hours (she decides that she could acquire a taste for it) and how long she and Doug could last as zombies before crumbling into dust (well, if they're careful, there are billions of years before the sun expands and the earth explodes.  Then, they'll just be zombies floating around in space).

It helps when you read a book to know that it's a parody.  If that had not been in the forefront of my mind as I read this, I would have hated it.  But as it is a commentary on some of the more absurd premises in paranormal teen romance, it makes a lot of sense.  It was a quick little read and one you might enjoy if you're looking for a fluffy piece of beach reading this summer.

Yes Virginia, You Can Have Character Focus in Dystopian Fiction

Title: The Roar
Author: Emma Clayton
Publisher: The Chicken House
Publication Date: April 1, 2009
Reading Level: Age 12 and up

Synopsis: (from Goodreads) - 
Mika and Ellie live in a future behind a wall: Solid concrete topped with high-voltage razor wire and guarded by a battalion of Ghengis Borgs, it was built to keep out the animals, because animals carry the plague. At least that's what Ellie, who was kidnapped as a child, has always been taught.

But when she comes to suspect the truth behind her captivity, she's ready to risk exposure to the elements and answer the call of the wild. Listen. Can you hear it? She's strapping on her headset, jumpstarting her Pod Fighter, and--with her capuchin monkey at her back--she's breaking out!


My Review: 
I have long since learned not to trust book summaries.  Either they will make a good story sound boring or an awful story sound intriguing.  Such is the case with "The Roar" - I would not have picked this one up had my supervisor not suggested it.


Also - speaking of unreliable summaries - this book is not about Ellie.  It's about her twin brother, Mika, who refuses to believe that Ellie is dead even though his parents, teachers and counselors tell him she is.  But Ellie comes up enough that this is not a deal-breaker for me.


(Suggestion to publishers - WRITE BETTER SUMMARIES!)


The world Emma Clayton has created for her characters is both fascinating and terrifying.  It is a world where everyone has to take what the government says at face value because there simply isn't any other source.  They are told that they must stay behind The Wall surrounding the country because of a devastating Animal Plague that nearly wiped out all of humanity.  The poor people are packed into tiny fold-out apartments and are given glorified mold to eat.  The children are given "Fit Mix," which they are told will give them the necessary nutrition, but it actually turns out to be something more sinister.  Mika's the only one who questions anything this government tells him, to his detriment, but he also succeeds at the beating the government at its own game (and I'm not talking about the arcade game that gets the whole plot in motion).  The moment when Mika discovers the government's BIG SECRET is so satisfying that I didn't care that I had pretty much called it at the start of the book.


This is one book I actually don't want to spoil too much, though it isn't hard to guess where it's going to end up.  That doesn't necessarily make it an inferior story.  Far from it, actually.  "The Roar" is a fast-paced, in-the-moment, intriguing and enjoyable read.  The main thing about this was that it was so focused on the characters and how they responded to their situation and didn't focus so much on the situation came to be (which is how dystopian fiction ought to be - I'm lookin' at you "Uglies").


There is a sequel (which, after that ending, there'd better be) - "The Whisper" is slated to be published in the United States this fall.

The Bad Things Don't Always Spoil the Good - Review of "The Book Thief"

Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: December 2005
Reading Level: Age 14 and up

Awards:National Jewish Book Award
Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Children's Literature (2007)
Prijs van de Kinder- en Jeugdjury Vlaanderen (2009)
Printz Honor (2007)
Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (2007)
Zilveren Zoen (2008)
Teen Read Award Nominee for Best All-Time-Fave (2010)
Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (2009)
ALA's Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults (2007)

Synopsis: (from Goodreads)
It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery...
Narrated by Death, Markus Zusak's groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young foster girl living outside of Munich in Nazi Germany. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she discovers something she can't resist- books. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever they are to be found.
With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, Liesel learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids, as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

My Review:
Oh, "The Book Thief" - you wonderful, wonderful piece of writing you.

This book first came to my attention through the Mark Reads blog.  All I knew was that it was set in Nazi Germany and there was a girl who stole books.  How the two connected, I hadn't the foggiest idea.  But the themes connected in one of the most beautiful ways I have ever seen.

So many of the stories about the Holocaust and World War II and Nazi Germany focus on the horrible things human beings are capable of doing to other human beings and "The Book Thief" is no exception.  But what this book does so magnificently is telling the story of Germans who - surprise! - didn't actually buy into the Nazi propaganda.  In fact, there were plenty of Germans who were just trying to take care of their families and follow the rules and do what they thought was right.

The best thing about this story is Liesel Meminger, the titular book thief who finds joy and solace in the books she "steals" from various places (though one of those places is the mayor's wife's library - and the mayor's wife purposely leaves the door open for Liesel).  She is just a little girl who plays with her friends and gets into mischief - just like any other kid in any other time period, but her experiences are set up against the backdrop of Nazi Germany.  Her childhood is peppered with flashbacks of her foster father's experience in World War I, scenes of Death (the narrator) picking up souls killed in the war and scenes of the people in Liesel's neighborhood taking cover in a basement during bombings.

My favorite chapter is when Max Vandenburg - a Jewish man Liesel's family is hiding - illustrates a story as a gift to Liesel to thank her for her kindness.  I don't want to go into details about Max's story because it is so lovely and wonderful, but the whole chapter was a brilliant depiction of the story as a whole.

This entire story is an exceptional tale of the very worst of humanity sitting right next to the best of humanity.  It takes all the black and white morality in storytelling and sits it on the bench and lets the grays of real people shine through.  Nothing is ever straightforward, as much as we try to make things good and right.  But that doesn't mean you stop trying to live a good and moral life the best way you know how.

"Incarceron" and "Sapphique" by Catherine Fisher

Well, I promised this would be here and here I am delivering on my promise.  Again, this is a reminder that SPOILERS are prevalent.

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Date: Incarceron: January 2010; Sapphique: December 2010
Reading Level: 14 and up

Incarceron Synopsis: (from Goodreads) -
Incarceron -- a futuristic prison, sealed from view, where the descendants of the original prisoners live in a dark world torn by rivalry and savagery. It is a terrifying mix of high technology -- a living building which pervades the novel as an ever-watchful, ever-vengeful character, and a typical medieval torture chamber -- chains, great halls, dungeons. A young prisoner, Finn, has haunting visions of an earlier life, and cannot believe he was born here and has always been here. In the outer world, Claudia, daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, is trapped in her own form of prison -- a futuristic world constructed beautifully to look like a past era, an imminent marriage she dreads. She knows nothing of Incarceron, except that it exists. But there comes a moment when Finn, inside Incarceron, and Claudia, outside, simultaneously find a device -- a crystal key, through which they can talk to each other. And so the plan for Finn's escape is born.

Sapphique Synopsis: (from Goodreads) -
Finn has escaped from the terrible living Prison of Incarceron, but its memory torments him, because his brother Keiro is still inside. Outside, Claudia insists he must be king, but Finn doubts even his own identity. Is he the lost prince Giles? Or are his memories no more than another construct of his imprisonment? And can you be free if your friends are still captive? Can you be free if your world is frozen in time? Can you be free if you don't even know who you are? Inside Incarceron, has the crazy sorcerer Rix really found the Glove of Sapphique, the only man the Prison ever loved. Sapphique, whose image fires Incarceron with the desire to escape its own nature. If Keiro steals the glove, will he bring destruction to the world? Inside. Outside. All seeking freedom. Like Sapphique.

My Review: Um... yeah... So, remember how I said I thought this was an amazing book? Admittedly, I also said that it took me a while to really get into the plot and the character.  But there was that one shining point in "Incarceron" that I completely loved and that's where my "Mid-Book Review" came form.

Well... the rest of the series is... how shall I put this delicately?  It didn't live up to expectations.  Yeah, that sounds about right.

I tried.  I really, really tried.  But the fact remains that - other than around chapter 27 when things REALLY started getting going - I just didn't care about these characters.  I've said in other reviews that if I don't care about the characters or the plot, then there's really no point in continuing to read (or watch, as the case may be).  I have very little context for what's going on in these books - I don't know why they chose to instate Protocol or trap everyone in the Regency Era, I don't know how Incarceron came about, I don't know if this is science or magic (or some combination of both - but to what extent?), I don't know how the Warden came into power, I don't know where Queen Sia came from or how her sorcery works, I don't know who the Sapienti are or even why they are important!  How were people selected to be Prisoners of Incarceron?  Where did Sapphique come from - was he even a real person or was he just a legend that the Prisoners invented?  Who in the world is King Endor or Lord Calliston and why are we getting excerpts from their writings at the beginning of each chapter?  Why did the Warden take Claudia from the Prison as a baby and raise her to be Queen? Why does he need his daughter to be Queen?  What does the Warden do all day, anyway?

These are things I think about.  And I certainly can't be the only one. 
 
For two whole books, I expected there to be a satisfactory explanation of how this world works and I never got it.  Because I didn't have any context for the world, I didn't know why these characters were doing these things and it didn't make any sense.  It would be safe to say that I got more out of the summaries on the book jackets than I did out of the actual story.

The narrative takes a lot for granted.  No, I should say that it assumed too much.  It assumed that readers would simply fill in the blanks on their own and left waaaay too much out.  I wanted to care about Finn and Keiro (even though I thought Keiro was a twerp - oh, that's another question: How did Finn and Keiro become oathbrothers? What does that even mean?), but I couldn't.  I wanted to care about Attia - but she was more or less window dressing in the first book, so I ignored her.  But then she became inexplicably important in "Sapphique" and I didn't know why.


See, this is a difficult review for me to write because all I have are questions.  Of course, by the end of "Sapphique," I knew that the end goal was to end Protocol, but I wasn't sure why or even how they did it.  And was Claudia's life so terrible under Protocol?  Who were the Steel Wolves? What was their purpose?


I can see that this review is just all questions and no answers and I suppose that's all you really need to know.  But I feel terrible because some of my students told me they loved this book and they couldn't put it down (one kid in particular isn't much of a reader and he said he liked it a lot).  I'm sure this would appeal to a certain kind of reader - but I was so confused by this story that I couldn't tell you who exactly would enjoy it.

"Pure" by Terra Elan McVoy

Note: I know I said I'd review "Incarceron" next, but I got caught up in moving and it's been a wild week (plus my available internet is rubbish - hence, no picture - but I'm getting that fixed.  Yes, I said "rubbish").  So, that review will come next week (I promise!) For now, here is an oldie but goodie.

Title: Pure
Author: Terra Elan McVoy
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Date of Publication: 2009
Reading Level: Ages 14 and up

Synopsis: (from Goodreads) –
Tabitha and her four best friends all wear purity rings, symbols of the virginity-until-marriage pledge they made years ago. Now Tab is fifteen, and her ring has come to mean so much more. It's a symbol of who she is and what she believes—a reminder of her promises to herself, and her bond to her friends. But when Tab meets a boy whose kisses make her knees go weak, everything suddenly seems a lot more complicated. Tab's best friend, Morgan, is far from supportive, and for the first time, Tabitha is forced to keep secrets from the one person with whom she's always shared everything. When one of those secrets breaks to the surface, Tab finds herself at the center of an unthinkable betrayal that splits her friends apart. As Tab's entire world comes crashing down around her, she's forced to re-examine her friendships, her faith, and what exactly it means to be pure.

My Review: This was a very interesting read. I’m not a real fan of Christian fiction in general because the authors are sometimes a bit heavy-handed about the point they’re trying to make and that gets in the way of the actual story. Even though I consider myself a religious person, I sometimes feel like the characters and the stories in religious fiction are often blown out of proportion. The genre is not how I would want religious people to be portrayed, but that’s what the stereotype has become. So, I was a little nervous about reading this book, but it turned out not to be the typical Christian fiction.

When they were twelve, Tabitha, Cara, Morgan, Naeomi and Priah all made promises to themselves and to God to keep themselves pure and abstain from sex until marriage. They all wear purity rings to symbolize this promise. Three years after making that promise, things have changed in each girl’s life, but they are still committed to their promise. However, when Cara breaks her promise and has sex with her boyfriend, Michael, that’s when things spiral out of control.

Tabitha is the narrator of the book and she is easily my favorite character. Tabitha finds great strength in her faith and loves going to church, even though her parents are overly religious, though they still support her. Her relationship with God is a very personal one and she doesn’t like to make a big deal about her faith in public. When Cara tells Tabitha that she broke her promise, Tabitha is the one that’s the most supportive and caring toward Cara. Morgan and Naeomi completely shun Cara for her actions to the point where Morgan (whom Tabitha describes as her very best friend) even shuns Tabitha for still being friends with Cara. In the meantime, Tabitha meets Jake at a church function and they start dating and their relationship starts getting really serious. It makes her take a look at her own promise and what she’s going to do about it.

There is a lot to love about this book and I could probably gush about it on and on, but I want to focus on one scene in particular – after Morgan finds out about Cara, she starts protesting outside the school and calling for prayer circles in defense of purity. Tabitha is completely embarrassed for Morgan because Morgan’s display is very over-the-top and people start laughing at her. Other groups start to protest for various reasons (some for a joke, but some are actually serious) and it gets so out of hand that the principal has to ban all protesting in front of the school because it disrupts regular school activities. Later, Tabitha’s dad starts ranting about how there’s no place for conservative Christian views in public school, which Tabitha does not take kindly to. She gives one of the best lines in the book when she says:

“…[T]hey made her [Morgan] stop. Made everybody stop. And besides, it didn’t work. You don’t have to worry. The world is still safe from too many stupid Jesus freaks. There are still plenty of nonbelievers out there. Your ability to have an intelligent conversation with someone is still intact… I know what you think, Dad. That people who believe in God are just idiot brainwashed zombies. But to some of us, it actually does mean something: Something really special and important we can’t talk about except in certain places and with certain people, because otherwise everyone thinks we’re freaks who’re all out to recruit more zombies into our coven. So go ahead and call the school… but when you do, thank them. Because in spite of what Morgan tried to do, she got stopped. She can’t do it anymore. And neither, for that matter, can anybody else, whether they believe in Allah or the Purple Donkey from Kathmandu… Now nobody can talk about religion at school at all.”

I love Tabitha’s response because it is so realistic in that she stands up to her dad when he starts insulting her faith. Tabitha is a great representation of how most Christian teens really are. She struggles with her own faith, the choices her friends make, how other people (including her parents) react to her faith and she does it in a very non-preachy way. In fact, religion in this story is treated as just one more aspect of Tabitha’s life – it’s not the only thing that she does. God is referred to in a very matter-of-fact way – without the subject being overblown. The story makes it quite clear that being judgmental of other people because of their choices is not right, but that it is good to stand up for your own beliefs. Tabitha continues to love Cara and Morgan even though she doesn’t agree with what they’ve done. In the course of the story, Tabitha grows in her relationship with God and learns a great deal about herself and what she wants in her own life.

This is a fantastic book for any Christian teen no matter the denomination. Tabitha especially sticks up for her beliefs, but she is not the caricature of the prudish and holier-than-thou Christian teen that gets mocked in popular culture. The story takes a realistic look at what it’s like to be a person of faith and hold on to those beliefs when people around you aren’t and, especially, how to get along with everyone no matter their convictions. This is a very refreshing take on the subject and it’s something I think many teens would benefit from reading.

Mid-Book Review: "Incarceron" by Catherine Fisher

Note: I have not yet finished "Incarceron" so I don't know the ending, but I wanted to give a short bit about what I like so far.  And I was tired of having my "Uglies" tirade being the first thing people see on this blog.  Trust me - there will be a full and proper review of this when I finish (and mostly likely "Sapphique"as well, when I finish it).

This. Is. An. Amazing. Book.  I had plenty of people recommend this (including one of my younger brother's friends who isn't what you'd call an avid bookworm) and I was so excited when I got the two-book set for my birthday.

Imagine my confusion when I began to read and had absolutely zero idea what was even going on.  I very nearly gave up in chapter 6 because I was so confused and lost.  But I went back and re-read the first few chapters and ... well, I still was lost, but I stuck it out.  And now I can't stop reading!  Of course, I will have to stop because it's Memorial Day weekend and there's always some family stuff going on - but if I can get away and finish the rest of this, I will.

Can't wait to do a decent review of this - yay!

The "Uglies" Series by Scott Westerfeld

Note: This review will cover the entire series.  Well, as much of the series as I could get through, anyway.  As a result, this review will be longer than usual.  And it also contains SPOILERS.

Note The Second: If you enjoyed this series, be warned that I did not.  And I will review accordingly.  I look forward to your emails.

Synopsis: (h/t Goodreads) - This arc of Scott Westerfeld's UGLIES trilogy follows the high-tech adventures of Tally Youngblood. As an ugly, then a pretty, and finally a special, Tally works to take down a society created to function with perfect-looking people who never have a chance to think for themselves.

My Review: Oh, Uglies.  What can I say about Uglies?  The short answer to that question would be that it's a your basic "bait-and-switch" story.  You think you're getting one thing, but end up with something completely different.  And that can sometimes be a good thing, but this is a case where it goes horribly, horribly wrong.

In this world, people are taken when they are sixteen and made "pretty" - that is, they are subjected to radical surgery to make them look extraordinarily attractive.  Bones are lengthened, faces are re-shaped, skin is even reconstituted to do away with acne and other skin problems.  The trade-off in all this (I guess you could call it a trade-off) is that New Pretties (as they are called soon after the surgery) are incredibly stupid.  Their sense of logic and common sense gets taken out of them during the operation.  The biggest decision any of them ever has to make is what color feather boa to wear to a costume party (the pink one's out because you wore that to last night's costume party).  "Fun" for pretties involves jumping off buildings and ice-skating on hovering ice rinks.  The government provides safety equipment like bungee jackets and crash bracelets to prevent major injury and any minor scrapes and bruises can easily be fixed by an easy surge - because any kind of scar or blemish is "totally bogus" (Gladly, "bogus" doesn't get used in the narrative until Pretties otherwise I would have found everything intolerable.  Even more than I already did).

At the start of Uglies, Tally Youngblood is the last one in her age group to get the operation.  Her best friend, Peris, has recently gone through the operation and is now living in New Pretty Town.  Tally misses Peris and sneaks into New Pretty Town to see him and she is taken aback by how much he's changed.  Tally later meets a fellow ugly-waiting-to-turn-pretty, Shay.  Shay introduces Tally to the Smoke, which is an underground rebellion of sorts.  These people have run away from the pretty operation because they find out that it's nothing more than government-sponsored mind control - the operation includes putting "lesions" on the brain to make the Pretties more stupid and, thus, easier to control (I question the use of the term "lesions" in that it's an instance of You Keep Using That Word. Then again, I'm not a brain surgeon).  Tally, however, winds up being recruited as a spy by Dr. Cable in the Special Circumstances division.  Tally is tasked with infiltrating the Smoke and giving it up to the Specials so the government can put down any rebellion.  To make a long story short, Tally finds the Smoke, falls in love with David (their leader), goes through the classic "Should I? Shouldn't I?" debate with herself.  The Specials come in, raid the Smoke, Shay gets captured and turned into a Pretty and Tally gives herself up to the operation in order to save Shay.

That's the gist of Uglies and that's the best the series gets.  Questionable government policies designed to keep the general populace down?  Main character thrown in the middle of a rebellion?  Potential love interest?  Infiltrating the enemy camp to save your friends?



Unfortunately, it never gets off the ground.

Before I go on to Pretties, I have to make special mention of the scenes of the Smoke in Uglies.  The Smoke is AMAZING!  Westerfeld takes so much time to describe the Smoke and how things work in that society that the reader is led to believe that a significant portion of our time will be spent there.  And I am completely okay with that.  But (and it's a big BUT!) in the course of two chapters the Specials zoom in and, like a hoard of Vikings, pillage and plunder the place and it's gone.  We never see the Smoke again.  Which is very disheartening, considering (A) How long it took Tally to get there, (B) How quickly she starts to feel at home and (C) The most interesting characters we meet in this entire series are in the Smoke.  Why spend so much time on something that's never going to be that important later on?

So next - Pretties -

The beginning of Pretties is so jarring and not at all what Uglies was.  My main problem with Pretties is that Tally and Shay became so unbearably stupid and I didn't care about them anymore.  Not the way that I cared about them in Uglies.  And I just could not get into the pretties' air-headed vocabulary, which is saturated in the narrative.  Words like "bogus" and "bubbly" mean nothing to me, further advancing the idea that I really have no need to care about this story (and can we please go one page without using a phrase like "ugly-making" or "nervous-making"?  That was just irritating).

Westerfeld spends the first half of the book establishing who the Pretties are and how their world works and - to quote Mr. Butler - frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.  It was well-established in Uglies that being Pretty is not a desirable trait (at least, to people who actually know what it involves.  The people who become Pretty are too brain-dead to care) and what the government does to these people is wrong.  I really don't want to be in New Pretty Town with absolutely nothing happening to advance the plot.  Let's move on to the part where Tally overthrows the government and Dr. Cable goes slunking back to the sewer where she crawled out of.

Well, if I have to be stuck in New Pretty Town, I might as well talk about Zane.  Zane is... well, Zane is the fictional-character equivalent of this gif:



Zane comes out of nowhere, he suddenly becomes Tally's "OMG BESTEST BEST BFF!" and the third (or fourth, depending on who you ask) piece of a mostly useless love triangle. Again, we are given no reason to care about him, but it's expected that we should.  He has no motivation other than to follow Tally around like a lost puppy (for reasons that I have yet to hear about) and just generally be annoying. My question is this: You had Peris established as Tally's very best friend in the first chapter of Uglies. Why in the name of sanity would you introduce this useless lump in the second book? Zane's role could easily have been moved to Peris, thus justifying the latter's existence and leaving me with one less headache (however, I was cheering for Zane's anti-gravity bungee jacket to fail as he fell off the floating ice rink.  Tears were shed when that didn't happen).

Noticeably absent from Pretties is David.  Oh, he gets a courtesy mention here and there, but the supposed leader of the opposition that's also the main character's love interest (the one that's actually interesting) doesn't really show up at all.  It's like this plot is allergic to well-rounded, exciting characters.  Even Tally, who was interesting and thoughtful in the first book, has been demoted to the characterization of moldy chunk of cheese.  And when she starts to fight the pretty-induced idiocy, she doesn't get beyond Bella Swan (aka Pants) territory in terms of how interesting her character is.  I have lost the will to care.



Pretties ends with Tally getting caught (again!) - this time by Shay, who has been recruited by Special Circumstances and been turned - well - Special.  Now, the Specials are people who've had an operation that makes the pretty-operation look like a haricut.  Specials are designed to be killers - they have (among other things) quicker reflexes, they have sharp hearing, they have extremely sharp teeth and they have this "Skintenna" which allows them to communicate with each other via thoughts. This is probably as close as any science-fiction story will get to acknowledging fantasy characters such as faeries and Tolkien-esque elves.  Specials should be cool, no?



The answer to that is - if you haven't guessed by now - a resounding NO!  If anything, it gets worse.

As Specials, Tally and Shay have a new set of vocabulary (of course they do) that we readers have to get used to all over again.  I will give Westerfeld some credit - at least it makes sense to call Pretties "bubble-heads."  But there's also the same manufactured drama that's been going on for two books already and I was left feeling like there was no point in going through everything all over again.  Every time Tally got a new "brain" (twice - once when she became Pretty and once when she became Special) she had to reassert herself as a character and it fell flat every time.  I was left pining for the curious, intriguing and compelling cute little Ugly that Tally was in the first book.  But that version Tally was essentially erased from the narrative - which, I can see how that would be an effective plot device.  But it leaves me feeling like I've missed something because by this point I have lost all desire and ability to care about Tally or Shay or David (where the hell has he been this whole time?) or even Butt-Monkey Zane.  I'm hoping a stray comet comes in a pummels everyone to death so I don't have to deal with the whining anymore.

This brings me to the ending of Specials.  Oh, the ending... I have a special place for you (no pun intended) -

So, it's been established that the government of this world pretty much sucks.  It takes people and promises something fantastic and brilliant (i.e. the gift of being gorgeous and popular and all those things we wanted to be in middle school) and give it to them while also taking away their ability to make intelligent decisions and exercise free will on their own.  This is SERIOUS BUSINESS and needs to be dealt with accordingly.  However, when Dr. Cable (who is the stand-in for the government in this story) is caught, Tally takes pity on her because - this is when I chucked the book across the room - Dr. Cable created the Specials and it would devastate the dear doctor's heart to have all her work destroyed.



And this only gets better - I haven't yet mentioned the Rusties in this review (which is amazing since Tally thought of them EVERY OTHER STINKING SENTENCE!) In a nutshell, the Rusties are us. At least, the planet-raping, oil-drinking, car-driving, tree-cutting-down, nasty-people-who-don't-recycle version you only see in shows like "Captain Planet."  The Rusties were destroyed when a virus that replicates in oil got loose and killed everyone and now all the Rusty cities are just ruined shells and serve as a reminder of what happens when you don't use those silly curly-bob lightbulbs (OH THE HUMANITY!!!1!!!)  At first, I just thought the Rusty mythology was there to explain why this world exists - the government had to step in and save people from themselves.  Which meant turning them all into mindless drones that could easily be controlled by plastic surgery and drunken parties (Yes, that's soooo much better).  Anyway, the Rusties really don't have anything to do with the plot at large other than one of their ruined cities serves as a hideout for the New Smokies and it's a good place to have covert planning sessions (not that we get to see any of that subversive coolness going down, anyway).

Once Tally and company take down Dr. Cable and the government at large, Tally realizes something terrible that, duh, stupid reader - you should have seen this coming.  What, you didn't???  Well, aren't you just an idiot.  The government's policy of brain control was actually HELPING people.  God forbid we let people think for themselves!  Because free will = freedom of thought = potential for mistakes = potential for stupidity = people get hurt and Bad Things Happen (and baby seals get eaten by mean, mean tankers in the ocean spreading fear and harm and industry throughout the world. OH NOES!)

So, what does Tally do?  She finds David (who finally can be arsed up to make an appearance - at the end of the whole story) and they run off to the wilds to be free and fight off the evilness of regular people who have had their their freedom to choose restored to them... which is something I thought they were actually fighting for in the whole series?



At this point, I was so pissed off with the whole series - not just for it's hidden "Green Aesop" nonsense, but because it actually becomes a Broken Aesop (while we're linking to TV Tropes...) If you want to tell a "Save the Planet" kind of story, then do it!   But make sure your audience knows what it's getting. Don't hide behind the promise of a thrilling dystopian adventure and then pull the rug out from under them towards the end. The one thing that makes me distrust writers the most is when I think I'm getting one thing, but I wind up with something completely different. I'm okay with being surprised within the plot, but I am not okay with switching genres and/or motivation partway through the story.

Suffice it to say that at this point, I had no desire to finish the series.  Extras will not be joining the rest of these novels because I just don't want to read it anymore.  And the sad thing is that, while I was reading Uglies, I started reading Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan, which I plowed through at a pace comparable to how fast I read Harry Potter.  And I actually enjoyed those books, so I know Westerfeld can write compelling characters and plots.  For some reason, he just didn't do it here.  And he threw in a fake-out ending as a bonus.

Bottom Line: This series could have been so much better.  The sad fact is that it wasn't.  A combination of flat characters and the long absence of characters that were actually interesting coupled with a preachy "Moral of the Story" that ultimately had nothing to do with any of the preceding plot makes for something that I just could not care less about.  Stories are meant to be engaging and enjoyable.  The Uglies series was neither.