Uglies Trilogy

The Uglies trilogy by Scott Westerfield technically has a fourth, Extras, but it does not revolve around the main character Tally as the others do. The first three books follow Tally in a futuristic society where all children are forced to live in the outer rim of society until they turn 16, at which time they undergo surgical operations to become "pretty." Turning pretty means being able to join the party society in the city.


At first Tally is ready to join her older friends, but she ends up running away and finding a group that is determined to keep the looks they were born with. The rest of the series has Tally struggling to discover who she can trust, deciding who she wants to be, and finding out where she belongs.

I thought this was a really interesting book series. A lot of the things in the books were lessons and comparisons to what people today think is important, but the books didn't feel overly moralistic.  There was enough action and suspense to keep me interested and wanting to read the next book, and it was fun reading about the kind of party games going on.

I recommend these books to anyone interested in this combination of action and inner vs. outer beauty, but it will probably interest underclassmen in high school the most.

Hunger Games Trilogy

The Hunger Games trilogy is an awesome book series by Suzanne Collins and includes The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay. When I read the first one, I didn't realize it was the first of several, so when I got to the end, I was pretty surprised. I went straight to the library to get the others, but unfortunately the third wasn't being published for another six months. It was torture, especially because the end of the second has a huge cliffhanger.

The main premise of the trilogy is in a post-apocalyptic society divided into twelve districts (the thirteenth has supposedly been destroyed), each which produces or manufactures something different. Every year, each district has to send teenaged a boy and girl to the Hunger Games, a live-broadcast television event where the participants must kill or be killed. The winner basically gets a new house and food and money for life. The story follows Katniss Everdeen as she fights for survival both inside and out of the games.

This is a fabulous trilogy of books. For the most part, it is full of action and is quick-paced. It became even more suspenseful when I realized the author wasn't afraid to kill off characters I really liked. I read an article that said Collins began writing this because she thought students should be exposed to the realities of war, and she certainly succeeds here. There is a lot of death, and it is not for younger readers.