Uglies Series

Playing on every teen's desire to look as good as everybody else, 'Uglies' projects a future world in which a compulsory operation at sixteen wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty by conforming to an ideal standard of beauty. The new "Pretties" are then free to play and party, while the younger "Uglies" look on enviously. Tally Youngblood has always yearned to be pretty, but since her best friend Shay ran away to the rumoured rebel settlement of recalcitrant Uglies called The Smoke, Tally has been troubled. The authorities at the Department of Special Circumstances have given her an impossible choice: either she follows Shay's cryptic directions to The Smoke with the purpose of betraying the rebels, or she will never be allowed to become pretty. Hoping to rescue Shay, Tally sets off on the dangerous journey as a spy. But when Tally finally reaches The Smoke she will discover the sinister secret behind becoming pretty.