Uglies

by Scott Westerfeld

In Kurt Vonnegut’s classic short story “Harrison Bergeron,” society attempts to balance out the inherent inequalities of its population by handicapping those born with above average features, skills, or intelligence. If everybody is “equal” then nobody will feel inferior. That’s the theory, anyway.

Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies takes Vonnegut’s story and turns it upside down. Instead of making everybody average through handicaps, he makes everybody pretty through surgery. Tally Youngblood can’t wait to be pretty, but she’s not quite 16. Her best friend, Peris, was already made pretty and now Tally is alone with little to do but wait the few remaining months until it’s her turn. But she can’t wait. She’s afraid Peris will forget about her. After all, the Pretties are allowed to come and go as they please and Peris hasn’t been back to visit once since the surgery. Tally really can’t blame him, though. After all, she is still just an Ugly.

Before her birthday, Tally becomes friends with Shay, another Ugly who, like Tally, enjoys pulling pranks and other tricks. On one of their adventures, Shay takes Tally outside of town on their hoverboards to the ruins of an older civilization, the Rusties. Shay hopes to run into somebody out in the ruins, but nobody lives out there, do they? Why would anybody want to live out there when they could live in New Pretty Town and go to “bubbly” parties every night? But that’s exactly what Shay has in mind and she wants to take Tally with her. Is she crazy? Why would anybody choose to stay Ugly? Check out Uglies from the LFHS library to find out!

Monster

By Walter Dean Myers

Steve Harmon is on trial for allegedly taking part in a drug store robbery that turns bad and results in the shooting death of the store’s owner. The title of the book, Monster, comes from the word that the prosecutor uses to describe Steve and the other suspects of the crime. He wants to figure out what it means to be a monster and why people would see him that way. He’s not sure what to make of himself anymore. He thinks he’s a pretty good guy, but now he’s not so sure. The prosecutor does a convincing job of making some of the other guys involved in the trial seem pretty bad and Steve is worried that the jury, and his family, will see him as a part of that group.

Steve is interested in filmmaking and he spends his time in jail writing a screenplay about the trial. Steve’s screenplay makes up the bulk of the book’s text and the rest is made up of Steve’s handwritten reflections about himself and what he is going through. The style is unique and effective. The visual cues in the script set the scene and the mood. The reader understands when Steve is sad or confused. The reader becomes uncomfortable when Steve tries to rationalize his own actions. He does know those other fellows, the ones who look so bad. What does that say about Steve? How will the jury view him? How does his own lawyer view him? How does his father view him? These are the issues and emotions that Steve deals with throughout the course of the book. It’s a quick and engaging read and definitely worth checking out from the fiction section of the LFHS library.

November Spawned a Monster

The post title is the name of a Morrissey song, but it also provides a segue from the supernatural twist of last month's selections to the first book selection of this month. While I was searching through monster titles in the card catalog, I came across a book called Monster. It wasn't about ghouls, ghosts, or other creatures, though. It's about an entirely different kind of monster...