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For this task, I will write about Maddy, David’s mother. This character, even if we didn’t read a lot about her, is one of my favourites because she is very authentic, she has a very strong moral force and I identify a lot with her.

First, she is rooted in her convictions and her values. I really admire what she did: leaving behind her life, her house, her city and all she knew, to stay true to her values. She could have decided to forget about what she had discovered about the lesions and stay in the city. I mean, they were doctors, they were not brain-damaged, they were in a position of authority in the city, but they decided to leave and to reconstruct a completely new town in the middle of the forest, far from everything. It takes a lot of courage, bravery and nerve to restart a new life and live with the fear of being discovered, because they knew what the authorities of the city would have done to them.

Second, at the end of the book, when David and Tally entered in the Special Circumstances to save their friends, as soon as she was free, she took charge of the situation, thinking of every detail, trying to help everyone, without letting the death of her husband overwhelmed her. It really shows how great is her moral force.

Another example of her convictions would be at the end of the book, when she refused to administer the brain lesions cure to Shay when the latter did not agree. Tally tried everything to convince her, but Maddy stayed on her decision.

The role she plays in the story is the first disruptor of the society, the first person that stand up against the society and the first that tried to change something. She is a figure of bravery and strength for the Smokies who knows her.

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Here is Gabrielle, the Smoke journalist/spy assigned to the big news. We are live from Uglyville, illegally hidden in bushes near to Special Circumstances, where two Smokies, Tally and David, are going to try to enter the building without being seen or detected! I think it is the best and the most dangerous tricks I had ever seen and I swear that I did a lot of good tricks too when I was young!

Oh my god do you see this?! An illuminated message! «The Smoke lives»… A lot of Special Circumstances hovercars are coming out of the circular door! They probably had accomplices to distract the Specials! What a good idea! They will probably jump at any times, pray for their souls.

Oh oh! They are ready to make the Jump, with a big J, which will change their lives forever! Cross your fingers! They take their momentum, gaining speed, going faster and faster each seconds, aaaaand… NOW! Oof that was intense! I cannot see them anymore but I hope they enter!

A bit later

We are now in the Rusty Ruins, waiting for our heroes to come back.

OH MY GOD! They are here! They succeeded!!! They entered the Special Circumstances and saved our friends without being catch! What a feat! It was suicidal and nearly impossible. Two adolescents, breaking into the most guarded and high technological place of all the city. Wow. I am really impressed.

They were to weary to do an apparition on TV, but they told me all the story. I will be the transmitter.

So Tally told me that they entered in the Special Circumstances in the elevator, opening the door with the powerjack. They found the place where our friend were detained, they knocked out Doctor Cable, and they opened the door of each cell, saving everyone from the Special. They then fled on hoverboards, escaping and trying to lose the hovercars that were chasing them. They are now sleeping in a cave behind a waterfall, recovering from their aventure.

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The first theme I will treat about is treason and betrayal. It is a very present theme in the book because almost all of the character betrayed someone or something. For example, in the timeline of the story, Maddy and Az betrayed, because of good reasons, their city by constructing the Smoke and acquainting the citizens about the lesions. Another good example would be Tally. She betrayed a lot of people in this book, even if it was not always her fault. Firstly, she betrayed Shay and all the Smokies by coming to the Smoke on demand of the Specials Circumstances, to serve theirs and her behooves. After, when she realized she prefers the Smoke to PrettyTown and she changed her mind about being pretty, she broke the necklace from the Specials Circumstances. Sadly, she didn’t know about the fact that if it was broken, the Specials Circumstances would come, as if she had activated the pendant. Without knowing it, she betrayed the Smokies, Maddy and Az, David and everyone that trusted her in the Smoke. She also betrayed Shay by “stealing” David from her.

Going deeper in the reflexion, we can consider that the society did the biggest betrayal in the book. By turning pretty (and at the same time doing brain lesions) all the citizens, they had a hold on them. I really think that this is the biggest betrayal because the citizens really trusted the authorities and these latter did horrifying things behinds the back of everyone just to have more power over them. This make me think of all the government or leaders who brainwashed the population so they don’t stand up and do revolution.

There is a lot of other betrayals in the book, but it will be to long to enumerate all of them.

The second theme I will treat about is appearance. It is one of the main theme in the book. In the world where Tally live, appearance is very important. People who are natural, the ones under 16 years old, are called Uglies. Everyone, with the exception of those who decide to flee, pass under the knife to become a Pretty. They don’t even have the choice to do the operation or not, but I think it doesn’t really matter, due to the fact that they are all brainwashed by the authorities and so accustomed of this way of thinking. The citizens don’t accept themselves until they turn Pretty, which is, in my opinion really sad. This make me think of the publicities that incite young people to change themselves to look «perfect». A face that looks like all the others faces is not necessarily beautiful…

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In general, I really liked the Part 3 of the novel. I liked how the author kept us in suspense from the beginning of the Part III to the end of the book. I was not expecting all the twists! My favourite part was when Tally and David broke in the Special Circumstances, they saved their friends and Maddy and they escaped to the Rusty Ruins. It was really intense. I also really loved the part when the 3 Uglies wrote the message «The Smoke lives» with the sparklers. The author really thought of it and I don’t know why, these three word really had an impact on me. It was like a message of hope and rebellion at the same time, it inspired me. Also, the final phrase really let me with the desire to read the next books. I read the last sentence the first time I opened the book but I was not expecting the circumstances and the context of the sentence. The end was a really good plot twist. I admire how Tally devoted herself to the cause, even if her old dream of becoming a pretty was not what she wanted now.

On the other hand, I wonder what the author will say in the second book… The first one was so complete and full of adventures that now, I almost questioned the potential of the other volumes.

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Comparison between Tally and Doctor Cable. Even if these two characters are very differents, there is some links and comparison we can make. For example they don’t hesitate to lie to protect themselves or to hide their real motivations. They manipulate people who trust them to get what they want. Tally hide the real reason of her presence in the Smoke when she first went there, and even if after she changed her mind and decided to stay, she did not tell anyone about what made her come in the first place to protect herself from the judgements of the others Smokies. She did not want to face the anger of the ones she betrayed, so she decided to avoid it. She served her own interests. At the end of the book, she changed, she tried to fix her mistake, but I don’t think she would have said it if the Special Circumstances hadn’t invaded the Smoke. She would just have continued her life, lying to everyone. It is, in a certain way, selfishness. Doctor Cable has a similar way of thinking. She hide from Tally many things, like the fact that she already scanned the note from Shay when she first come at the Special Circumstances. She served her own interests, without caring about Tally. «You can die ugly, for all I care.» Even if Doctor Cable is much more cruel and her motivations are darker than Tally’s ones, it is selfishness in both way.

On the other hand, their values are very divergent. Tally is very loyal and she doesn’t hesitate to give herself to help the cause, oppositely to Doctor Cable, that will give the dirty job to the ones under her in the hierarchy. Tally also listen to the others and she is very comprehensive, at the opposite of Doctor Cable, who is insensitive to others problems.

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In the novel, my least favourite character is Doctor Cable because she’s a manipulator and she is selfish.

I think she’s a manipulator because she puts a huge dilemma in Tally’s head, when she prevents her from having the pretty operation. By depriving her from that opportunity, Doctor Cable is hoping Tally might slip out a word to her about the location of the Smoke, even though that would mean she would have to betray her friend Shay. I think Doctor Cable would do anything to get what she wants and that’s the reason why I don’t really like her. If someone with good intentions would have the capacities to be as persistent as her I would say it’s a good quality to have. On the other hand, Doctor Cable has motives that are negative and might have terrible consequences. I hate the fact that everything she does is always to serve her own interests.

For example, when she forces Tally to go to the Smoke with the heart necklace, it’s only because Doctor Cable wants to destroy that city to bring hierarchy back to normal. By activating the necklace, Tally will reveal the location of the Smoke to the Special Circumstances so they can destroy that city. The only “pro” of doing that is that Tally will be allowed to get the operation, but she will also lose friends she made at the Smoke like David and her best friend Shay. Not only will she lose dear friends, but she will be know and remembered as a traitor for the rest of her life.

“You [Tally] can die ugly, for all I [Doctor Cable] care.” (p.106)

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Shay VS Tally :

From the first part of the novel, we can definitely identify a big conflict between Tally and Shay when it comes to any subjects related to the Pretty operation. They both have very opposite ways of thinking about the Uglies and the Pretties. Tally has been dreaming about it since the day she was born. She really thinks she looks horrid right now as an Ugly and she couldn’t bear living a life without getting the surgery turning her into a Pretty. Moreover, Tally would always do morphos of herself in this high tech machine designed to test different Pretty looks on yourself. When talking about Shay, contrariwise to Tally, she has never done morphos of herself, except maybe one or two when she was younger, but that’s it. She hates that  machine because she thinks it only exists to make Uglies feel bad about themselves, since its making them dream about how they could look so much better as Pretties, instead of appreciating what they already have. Shay prefers herself looking like an Ugly because she says that if she becomes a Pretty, the face she will get won’t be hers, but just a prettier version of herself imagined by some doctors.

“ “You [Shay] want to take a shot?” “No, I want to go hoverboarding.” ”Sure, great. But first let’s get this right.” “What do you mean ‘get it right,’ Tally? Maye I think my face is already right!” “Yeah, it’s great. [...] For an ugly.” ” (p.42)

Tally VS Self:

This conflict happened when Tally had to take a really big decision. She had to decide between telling the special circumstances about the location of the Smoke or keeping it a secret. If she wanted to have the Pretty operation and see Peris again she would have had to betray her good friend Shay and reveal the location of the Smoke, the city she escaped to. If she had kept the location of the Smoke secret, Dr. Cable told her she would stay an Ugly for the rest of her life. Since Tally has been dreaming about getting the Pretty operation since the day she was born, we can clearly understand the heaviness of this major decision.

“Then I’ll [Dr. Cable] make you a promise too,Tally Youngblood. Until you do help us, to the very best of your ability, you will never be pretty.” (p.106)

This same conflict happened again when Tally arrived at the Smoke and had spent a couple of days there. She realized how much she got used to that city and she started liking it and making good friends, like David. She was then hesitating between activating the pendant or not.

“With half her mind, Tally was actually glad she’d come and seen all this.She could have lived her whole life in the city and never seen this much of the world. With the other half, Tally still wishes she had activated the pendant the moment she’d arrived in the Smoke. It would have been so much easier that way.” (p.217)

“She had to decide whether to betray the Smoke or not, completely understanding what it would do to Shay, to David, to everyone here [at the Smoke].” (p.217)

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In the novel, I would consider the doctors as the antagonists because they’re the ones who create the pretties. By “create” them, I actually mean “design” them however they want, from their physic to their psychological portrait. Even though Prettytown might seem like the ideal way of living and the most perfect place to spend your life, I still think it’s a dystopia hidden in a utopia. I wouldn’t even consider the pretties as biological humans anymore. At first, we thought the uglies would only get their physic fixed when they turned 16 years old, but it turns out they also alter their way of thinking by doing a small lesion on their brains while they do the operation. Can you imagine living in a city that is occupied by some sort of clones? That’s exactly what it is. They basically all become some sort of robots configured by the doctors. This is why I also think the uglies are the ones who get antagonize, because they are the ones who are restrained to live in that “clone” for the rest of their lives. The saddest part is that society is not informed about what the doctors do to them. They don’t know about the brain lesion they get, they don’t know about the antidote that can make them reverse the operation. It all secrets kept by the doctors and the Special circumstances.

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After reading the novel, I came to the conclusion that we should all read that book because it really offers us an extreme picture of our society in the future. More precisely, Scott Westerfeld, the author of the novel, first took a major debate subject, like plastic surgery, and created a story around it to make the problem look even worse than it actually is in the real world. I think his method allowed many readers including myself to realize how plastic surgery could actually end up affecting us in the long term. I like his concept of having two separated societies, the uglies and the pretties, as well as integrating people that will obviously decide not to conform to the city rules and go their own paths like the Smokies, who are rebellious people that decided to escape Uglyville or Prettytown to go to the Smoke and live their lives according to their own wills because they were against the pretty operation.

Even though we know it’s a fictional story, we still are able to relate to the book and compare it to some conflicts that already happened or are still happening right now.

Like I previously said, I think us, talking about the society, we need to see problems in extreme cases and from a distance to be able to react to them. By “distance” I mean we have to see it in a movie or in a book to see the whole situation and then react about it. Afterwards, if they tell us “this movie or book was inspired by a true story”, we will be more shocked because we are used to thinking books and movies are mostly fiction stories and that those kind of problems never happen in real life.

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Here I am Rebecca, the one and only Special Circumstances’ journalist. I’m currently talking to you live on Prettytown Newscast, directly from the Smoke. I am also currently on my hovercar to make sure I get you the best shots possible on this memorial day and to stay out of the action. Today Pretties, will be a day to remember! Since many many years, the Special Circumstances have been trying to find the numerous groups of rebels that escaped from Uglyville and even from different Prettytowns. Our special spy Tally Youngblood, an Ugly that just turned 16 years old, gave us the signal yesterday night so we could finally complete this mission of destroying the Smoke and bringing everyone back home. With our really advanced technology we were obviously able to create this special heart shaped pendant that Tally had to wear during her mission and she had to activate it once she was in the Smoke to reveal her location.

Even, though I saw her resisting our army not so long ago, they were still able to control her. On my portable radio, I can hear that the forces are also maintaining the rest of the Smokies and that so far everything is under control. That is it for now, I’ll be back after the commercial break.

approximately 10 minutes later….

I’m back and it looks like there is more action than earlier. Tally was out with one of our Special to go get the pendant that she apparently hid yesterday after activating it, according to what Doctor Cable just told me on the radio.

Oh no! That’s terrible!

Tally was on a house roof and called a hoverboard. She managed to escape our Special! I need to leave right now in case she sees me here and decides to attack me.

This was Rébecca talking to you directly from the Smoke. I’ll be back on the Prettytown Newscast as soon as I’m in a safer location.

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Tally, the image of loyalty,

She betrayed your community.

Victim of blackmail,

She follow the trail,

To the Smoke,

Under the oaks.

Becoming a Pretty?

Nan-ah, she prefers staying an Ugly!

In the Smoke, with David,

She can be vivid.

Brave, valiant, fearless,

Saving her friends was a success.

Accepting herself was not a simple task,

Everyone wearing a mask,

Pretty equals perfection and beauty,

But Smoky means acceptance and liberty