Westerfeld, Scott
PRETTIES
New York : Simon Pulse, 2005.
IL YA
ISBN 0689865392

(2 booktalks)

Tally Youngblood has become a pretty.  She is living her new life just as the other new pretties.  But she has a nagging feeling that there is something important that she has forgotten.  Something she promised she'd never forget.  And now her new boyfriend Zane keeps asking her questions about her time in the Smoke.  Tally remembers some of it but can't understand why Zane would want to know.  That was before.  Before she was pretty.  But the night of the party, Tally runs into Croy.  He has risked everything to find Tally and remind her of her time at the Smoke.  He has come to give her the cure.  What is Croy talking about?  The cure for what?  Being pretty?  But Tally remembers enough to try the cure.  With Zane.  But something has gone terribly wrong with Zane.  And now the other Crims are asking about a cure.  Is it time for Tally to come to grips with what is going on around her?

Booktalk #2

Once upon a time in the very far future there was a beautiful princess. She lived in a land where everyone was as beautiful as she. This land was known as New Pretty Town. Upon the event of one's sixteenth birthday, everyone received an operation that allowed them to be no longer ugly. Not only did they become physically beautiful, but they became stronger and healthier as well. And no one ever fought or disagreed with each other. Like everyone else, this princess lived in buildings that had smart walls whose clever holes in them could give her anything: food, a clique of fantastic friends, wonderful clothes. And best of all, there was a mirror on the wall, so the princess could look at herself all day long. The princess and the other people around her lived a life in which their primary goal was to have fun. There were non stop parties, high tech luxury and complete freedom. One day, the princess realized she was bored. The view from her building-gentle hills, fields of white flowers, and a deep dark forest that fascinated her. She started spending more time looking out the window than at her own reflection, as is often the case with troublesome girls. It was clear that no prince was showing up. Sure, she met a couple of guys that seemed like prince material and whose kisses left her head spinning. But something seemed dreadfully wrong in the life she was leading. She had always wished ever since she was a littlle that she could be here. Couldn't wait until her sixteenth birthday to receive the operation. But it felt like something in her life was…missing. There were hints that other people felt this way too, and there were clues from her past, from the time before. And then one day, she found a letter she wrote to herself when she was still ugly, along with two little white pills. The letter told her that her body wasn't the only thing that became pretty when she had surgery, that the doctors made her mind pretty as well. When that happened, people's thoughts didn't progress much beyond the next party or whatever pleasure they could seek. So the princess took one of the little white pills, and she began to feel bubbly, and look at things differently, and she knew, that something had to change, not only for her, but for everyone around her.
(By Susi Bonato, http://booktalkingcolorado.ppld.org, Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award Nominees 2009)