Conformity vs. Individuality
Uglies plunges the reader into a futuristic, seemingly utopian world in which one’s physical appearance at birth doesn’t matter—at age 16, all teens, who are known as “uglies,” undergo extensive plastic surgery that turns them into “pretties.” Fifteen-year-old Tally looks forward to her operation so that she can join her best friend, Peris, in New Pretty Town across the river and enjoy the endless party that is life as a…
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Beauty, Science, and Influence
In school, uglies learn that during the time of the Rusties (the people who lived on Earth prior to Tally’s society), everyone stayed ugly their entire life—and because of this, experienced racism and discrimination based on their looks. Tally’s society seeks to remedy this by scientifically deducing what makes a person physically beautiful, and making everyone look like that by forcing them to undergo “pretty” surgery as teenagers. Through what Tally and…
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The Natural World, History, and Growing Up
For uglies in Uglyville, having their operation to become pretty and moving to New Pretty Town is the agreed-upon definition of growing up. This trajectory also follows the broader arc of civilization in Uglies: after a horrifying manmade disaster, the few survivors of the Rusties (the civilization on Earth prior to Tally’s society) built the cities and developed the society that Tally inhabits several hundred hears later—and her society is one that, in…
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Friendship and Loyalty
Tally wastes no time in sharing with the reader that she wants so badly to become pretty because of a blood pact she made with her best friend, Peris. At some point when they were kids, they vowed to always stick by each other and become pretty together—they have matching, self-inflicted scars on their palms to remind them of this. However, Tally’s thinking about her loyalty to Peris (and about becoming pretty in general)…
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