Uglies
Set roughly three centuries after a virus collapsed our oil-dependent civilization, Uglies imagines a managed utopia in which every citizen, on their sixteenth birthday, undergoes a comprehensive cosmetic surgery that turns them into a Pretty. Tally Youngblood is months from her operation and counting the days. Then her best friend Shay, born on the same day, runs away to the Smoke, a hidden settlement of people who have refused the surgery. The city authorities, embodied by the chillingly calm Dr. Cable, give Tally a choice: lead them to Shay or remain Ugly forever. Out in the wilderness, Tally discovers that the operation has been doing more than reshaping faces, and that the price of the prettiness is the dulling of the mind. Scott Westerfeld's 2005 novel anchors a four-book series that helped define the wave of post-9/11 YA dystopias.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Uglies
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Three centuries after the Rusties poisoned the world, every sixteen-year-old gets the operation that turns them from an Ugly into a Pretty and moves them across the river to New Pretty Town.
Yes. Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series includes Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras, and a later quartet beginning with Impostors.
Yes. A Netflix film adaptation starring Joey King premiered in September 2024.
Yes. It is generally classified as upper middle grade or YA and is commonly read in grades six through nine.
Uglies was written by Scott Westerfeld, published in 2005 by Simon Pulse.
Uglies is 432 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Uglies takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
Uglies is a standalone novel by Scott Westerfeld, not part of a series.
Uglies is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.