I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world. Life in plastic, it's fantastic!
– Aqua, “Barbie Girl”
Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies saga (Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras) has been out for a while now – Uglies was released back in 2005 – but it’s still arguably one of the most popular young adult dystopian sagas on the shelves. My wife teaches sixth grade English and, according to her, it’s an “elite” series right up there with Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay) and Jeanne DuPrau’s Ember sequence. The saga’s exploration of body image, the beauty myth, and the pressure of social conformity seem to resonant powerfully with female readers in particular.
For those of you who have yet to read these profoundly moving – and immensely important – novels, Westerfeld offers up an overview on his website:
“Uglies is set in a world in which everyone has an operation when they turn sixteen, making them supermodel beautiful. Big eyes, full lips, no one fat or skinny. You might think this is a good thing, but it’s not. Especially if you’re one of the Smokies, a bunch of radical teens who’ve decided they want to keep their own faces...”
Although the series is over, Westerfeld – along with writer Devin Grayson and illustrator Steven Cummings – has breathed new life into the storyline by revisiting the first book in the series, Uglies, and creating a graphic novel entitled Uglies: Shay's Story that tells the tale through the eyes of Shay (aka Skinny), a girl who is nearing her 16th birthday and doesn’t want to undergo the surgery that, according to the Committee for Morphological Standards, will make her pretty.
“Let them grind and shape your bones into the right shapes… float in pretty chemical dreams while they peel off your face and rub your skin raw… smile with your new plastic cheekbones and blinding white teeth, secure in the knowledge that you look pretty much just like everyone else… just like the Pretty Committee thinks you should.”
Instead, she chooses to run away to the Smoke, a secret community of people who have renounced the allegedly “civilized” culture that is obsessed with superficiality – where everyone has the same cookie-cutter look – and powered by mindless social conformity. Shay desperately wants her friend Tally to come with her so she leaves her a coded message with directions… but, unfortunately, her act of kindness has disastrous results.
I’m not a big graphic novel fan but this was a truly fabulous reading experience – the story was obviously gripping but the vividly imagined visuals brought the characters and the locales (like the Ruins) to life. Reading this graphic novel compelled me to order all of the Uglies novels – I do want to read them again but I also want to have copies around for my daughters when they’re old enough to read: the lessons to be learned and the wisdom to be gained in Westerfeld’s dystopic vision is, in my mind, absolutely essential.
It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to understand the thematic significance of this storyline, especially when it comes to young readers. Just look around: we are being bombarded with images of human beings that are physically abnormal, unnatural – inhuman! – everywhere we turn. Botox, dermal fillers, breast implants, liposuction, abdominal etching, toddler teeth whitening, hair transplants, steroid abuse – it’s insane!
Is it any wonder so many of our kids are growing up filled with self-doubt and self-hate?
An excerpt from Uglies sums up why these novels are so important:
“We're not freaks…we're normal. We may not be gorgeous, but at least we're not hyped-up Barbie dolls.”
With an Uglies movie in the works (it’s rumored to be released later this year), I can’t recommend these novels highly enough to young readers – and to parents of young readers – and this new graphic novel is a perfect way to introduce new readers to this saga.
“I don't want the doctors to take me apart and put me back together. I want to make myself.”
― Uglies: Shay's Story by Scott Westerfeld
Paul Goat Allen has been a full-time book reviewer specializing in genre fiction for the last two decades and has written thousands of reviews for companies like Publishers Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and BarnesandNoble.com. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
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