Specials by Scott Westerfeld review

Specials
This is the third book in the Uglies Trilogy.  If you haven't Read Uglies and Pretties, go read them now.  The following will be a spoiler for those two books. For my review on Uglies, click here.


"Special Circumstances":  
The words have sent chills down Tally's spine since her
days as a repellent, rebellious ugly. Back then Specials were a sinister rumor - frighteningly beautiful, dangerously strong, breathtakingly fast. Ordinary pretties might live their whole lives without meeting a Special. But Tally's never been ordinary. And now she's been turned into one of them: a superamped fighting machine, engineered to keep the uglies down and the pretties stupid. The strength, the speed, and the clarity and focus of her thinking feel better than anything Tall can remember. Most of the time. One tiny corner of her heart still remembers something more. Still, it's easy to tune that out - until Tally's offered a chance to stamp out the rebels of the New Smoke permanently. It all comes down to one last choice: listen to that tiny, faint heartbeat, or carry out the mission she's programed to complete. Either way, Tally's world will never be the same.

I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed all three of these books.  They have been thrilling, thought-provoking, imaginative,  and sometimes aggravating, with a little love triangle thrown in for good measure.  In short, The Uglies Trilogy has been all of the things I love in a book.  That being said, the last book in the series, Specials, was my least favorite.  Tally, once again, finds herself captured and rewired with new "surge" (surgery) to boot.  And this time it takes her longer than ever to figure out what has happened to her.  I feel like this book takes the same pattern as the other two books, which was somewhat exhausting to me.  After struggling with Tally as she tries undo the brainwashing that has been done to her time and time again, I found myself saying, just give up!  And the ending didn't quite make me feel like the journey was totally worth it.  I definitely could have done with a little more romance :).  I don't want you to think that I didn't like this book, I really, really did.  I'm just thinking maybe you shouldn't read them back to back.  Take some time to breath in-between.  

Parents!  This book is pretty clean, but it does talk about Cutting.  To read the full content review, check out Parental Book Reviews.

~Andria