Final thoughts on Uglies

Just in case anyone else out there has recently finished the Uglies series and wants a few more thoughts about it, here ya go!

I thought a lot about the interaction between the main characters in the books. Specifically, between Tally and her best friend, Shay. It seemed a little... ironic... to me that their friendship lasted only a short period of time before the conflict of their world pulled them apart.

To recap, they became best friends during just a few short months before their scheduled "pretty surgeries," in the first book, Uglies. Near the end of Uglies, they had a falling out that lasted all through the second book, Pretties, and even resonated into the third book, Specials.

Of course you could argue that when Tally and Shay both became Specials in the third book that they were technically aligned on the same "team" once again. They acted civil towards each other, right? Yet to me it seemed like the tension between them never fully dissipated.


Did anyone else feel the same way? Or did you feel like Tally's and Shay's differences were happily resolved and you had no regrets?

Near the end of the third book, they both were able to gain their independent minds back after the many surgeries that had gone through and seemed to come to terms with each other. But it still seemed like they had to fight for it, and work at it continuously. Do you think Westerfeld did that on purpose and is that true to life?

I think Westerfeld is a good writer, a good storyteller, and did a really good job of characterizing Tally and Shay. He  wrote from Tally's  point of view convincingly, and he gave them believable, very human emotions and flaws. So to anwer my own question: yes, I think he did it on purpose.

There's some lessons about friendship and leadership mingled in there somewhere.

Also, as a writer myself, I think it was also one of the story questions, or conflicts, that kept me coming back as a reader. In other words, did you want to keep reading because you wanted to see them become friends again?

First, Westerfeld has to make you believe in their friendship - that they are real people who need friends and they care about each other. Then he has to get you emotionally invested in their friendship, so much so that you are sad to see them fall apart. Then Westerfeld has to keep you reading by making you believe that they can become friends again but that there is an interesting and difficult journey to get there.

It's good story writing. And I thought it was good reading too.

I got my "happy ending" but not in a bland, contrived way. In other words, maybe it's a good thing for humans to feel a little regret because it encourages us to do better next time. Westerfeld made me appreciate that some relationships could not be made perfect, or forced to revert back into what they were before, but that they were still worth working for.