Warning :
this book contains spoilers for Uglies and Pretties!
Series Order
This book in 6 words:
what if you’re better than everyone
Why did I read this?
As soon as I finished Pretties I downloaded Specials by Scott Westerfeld. Again, thank you Kindle!
Brief Summary
Tally just can’t seem to stay free. After escaping yet again in Pretties, she chooses to stay behind and be captured by Special Circumstances. She couldn’t leave Zane behind after he had taken the pill that caused extensive brain damage when it could have been her. So now Tally’s back in the city, but this time she’s not just a Pretty, she not even just a Special, she’s a Cutter. She is the best of the best. She keeps people in control. She captures runaways and hunts down the Smoke. She protects the wild from humans that would destroy it. Will she be able to rewire her brain yet again? Or will she betray and trick her friends like she always seems to do?
Favorite Quote : Everyone in the world was programmed by the place they were born, hemmed in by their beliefs, but you had to at least try to grow your own brain. Otherwise, you might as well be living on the reservation, worshiping a bunch of bogus gods.
Plot/Pacing/Setting
Specials gets back up to being extremely action-packed. We get to see their world from a whole new perspective yet again. As we move from the city back into the wild, we follow Tally in what turns out to be one of the wildest action and emotional roller-coasters.
Characters
Tally continues to grow and I suspect will constantly struggle with the things that have happened over the past year. I really can’t say enough about how well this character is written. She begins to come to terms with the bad decisions she made in the past and that she cannot blame herself for being taken advantage of.
Shay really comes alive in this book. As leader of the Cutters, she the boss. She’s Tally’s friend, but doesn’t want Tally to forget how she has hurt her friends in the past. The Cutters get their name for how they stay “bubbly” or alert. They cut themselves. They do this to feel. I think it is an important topic that is often glossed over. I’ll talk about it more in my Going Deeper section.
David and Zane are both in this book, but Tally really is the star. As I’ve mentioned before, I hate love triangles and unfortunately got what I wanted out of this one… just not the way I wanted to get it…
Recommendations
Really?! What do you think? lol
Going Deeper
The final book in the series is much darker than the others. We see kids hurting themselves to feel real, Pretties coming alive and challenging the government, and of course there is Zane, handicapped from taking the “wrong” pill and fighting to escape Prettytown yet again.
I never battled with cutting personally and I wish I could say the same for my friends. I can’t fully understand how or why people do it, but it is a real problem that many teenagers and adults deal with. Zane asks Tally “What is it that you’re not feeling, that you have to do that?” and I think that most accurately describes what they are doing. Trying to evoke missing feelings. I’m glad that Scott Westerfeld didn’t shy away from this touchy subject, but tackled it head on.
I’m sure I’m missing a lot in this review. I need to start taking notes as soon as I finish a book (thanks for the post-it note tip Jennifer!).
[...] Specials – Uglies Book 3 {book review} [...]
I thought this one would make an excellent film – it read like an action movie, although I felt the plot was a bit thin at points. I wonder if this will become a film (I think the first 3 books can be mushed into one film).
@ Candice : I think they are fast-tracking the first book’s movie. I’m not sure if they will make it a trilogy or not :/