Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

ALA Best Book for Young Adults, SLJ Best Book; Golden Duck Award, NY Public Library Best Books for the Teen Age

Ratings Explanation

Language:  The term, “suck” is used several times.  Shay and Tally refer to one another as “Fattie” and “Pignose”.

Violence:  The plastic surgery used to turn “Uglies” into “Pretties”, is described.  The people of  “The Smoke” fight while they are taken hostage.  Tally finds Boss dead in the forest undergrowth.  “David’s power jack thudded against the side of Dr. Cable’s head, and she slumped to the floor.”

Sexual Content:   Tally “startled a couple hidden among the trees (it was a pleasure garden, after all).”  They were a “tangle of perfect legs and arms”.  “Uglies did kiss each other and a lot more.”  “The big eyes and lips said: I’m young and vulnerable.  I can’t hurt you, and you want to protect me.  And the rest said: I’m healthy, I won’t make you sick.  And no matter how you felt about a pretty, there was a part of you that thought: If we had kids, they’d be healthy too.  I want this pretty person…”  Tally bathes in the wild.  She realizes that she has never been naked outside before.  Tally replies, ” Yeah, I know about the birds and the bees.”  Tally and David share a kiss.  Sexual innuendo as Tally and David ride a hover board together.  “Riding double was something Tally had never done before, and she found herself glad she was with David and not just anyone.  She stood in front of him, bodies touching, her arms out, his hands around her waist.  They negotiated the turns without words, Tally shifting her weight gradually, waiting for David to follow her lead.  As they slowly got the hang of it, their bodies began to move together, threading the board down the familiar path as one.”

Adult Themes:  Shay and Tally use morpho software to make their faces symmetrical and fit the “standard of beauty”.  Shay proclaims, “That’s not me.  It’s some committee’s idea of me.”   Tally and Shay peruse ancient magazines full of women “wearing formfitting underwear, like a lacy swimsuit…the woman looked like she was starving, her ribs thrusting out from her sides, her legs so thin that Tally wondered how they didn’t snap under her weight.  Her elbows and pelvic bones looked sharp as needles.  But there she was smiling and proudly baring her body, as if she’d just had the operation and didn’t realize they’d sucked out way too much fat.”  (Description of a model.)  Tally and Shay discover that a lot of people, “especially young girls, became so ashamed at being fat that they stopped eating….some even died.”  The girls fight over “David” in the “The Smoke”.  Pretties were “drinking and throwing their empty bottles to shatter.”  Tally pushes her way through drunken dancers.  Shay is drunk.

Summary

Tally is on the verge of reaching 16, the age at which an operation will turn her from an Ugly to a Pretty.  Tally ‘s friend, Shay, runs away to the wilderness, “The Smoke”, to find others who want to stay their uniquely beautiful “ugly” selves.  When Shay runs away, Tally is threatened with a life of ugliness if she does not track Shay down and betray the “People of The Smoke”.   Tally is initially horrified by the primitive lifestyle in the wilderness; however, she enjoys the freedoms of the wild and her new found friend, David. Tally decides to remain an Ugly and attempts to destroy the tracker, which accidentally sets it off.  The Smoke is invaded and Tally barely escapes.  David’s father, Az, is killed. Tally and David release hostages and Tally confesses her part in the destruction of “The Smoke” to David and his mother.  David’s mother, Maddie, has created a cure for the Pretties, but she needs a willing participant to take the cure.  Tally realizes the only way to redeem herself is to surrender to the city and become a pretty.  She will then take the newly discovered antidote to see if it will work.

This book is emotionally charged.   “The Uglies” plays on the emotions surrounding adolescent development.  I do love the underlying messages regarding body image, self-worth, peer pressure, individuality and conformity.  Beauty should be found within and radiate throughout.  I think this is a great book for a junior high/high school reader.  I am disappointed by the unnecessary sexual references.

©2010 The Literate Mother