Littérature anglaise

Littérature anglaise

The title of the book that I introduce is Uglies, it was written by Scott Westerfeld. This book was published for the first time in 2005 by Simon Pulse and was re-released in 2011 with a new cover, the edition of the book that I have (2011) is The Paperback Edition. This book is the first part of a trilogy with the sequels being Pretties, and Specials, and with another add-on book Extras. The number of page of Uglies is 425.

The author of Uglies is Scott Westerfeld, he is a 50 year old man, and he was born in 1963 to Dallas in Texas, USA. He is American. He is an author of novels and short stories but also a electronic music composer for the scene, a multimedia designer and he does literary critics. He wrote several series of novels: Succession (two books, 2003), Midnighters (three books, 2004-2005-2006), Peeps (two books 2006-2007), Uglies (five books 2007-2008), Léviathan (three books 2009-2010-2011).

The trilogy of Uglies was a hot seller, it was featured on the New York Times bestseller list. The genre of this novel is science-fiction.

The story is a distopya, so the spatio-temporal framework of Uglies is particular. The story takes place in XXIV or XXV (the time is not specified, but an object from the middle of XXI is called back more than three centuries). We know that the story takes place on Earth, but we don’t know the country (surely in USA or perhaps another country where the language spoken is English, because the main character Tally declares that it is his mother tongue).

The main character is Tally Youngblood, she is a student and her nickname is Squint, and she first appears in Uglies as a fifteen-year-old “Ugly” waiting for her sixteenth birthday. Peris is her best friend at the beginning of the book, but after he becomes a “Pretty”, Shay takes his place. Although a good picture or description isn’t present in the book, Tally has curly brown hair, beady hazel eyes that she thinks are too close together, thin lips, a big flat nose. At the beginning of the book she dreams of becoming a “Pretty”, but it changes, she changes, and at the end of the book, it is not at all the same person, we can say that she opened her eyes to the reality of the world where she lives.

One of the major characters is Shay, a rebellious girl, she is a student too and her nickname is Skinny, she was born the same day that Tally. She is very skinny, had eyes that were too far apart, and had dark straight pigtails. She looks similar to any normal teenager like us. It’s just that in the futuristic world that Tally lives in is considered to be ugly if you have something wrong, but small such as pimples. It isn’t that serious to have blemishes, but in the book it is. Shay doesn’t want to become a “Pretty”, so she flees the day before her sixteenth birthday not to undergo the operation that will change her, she joined the resistance (The Smoke) and tries to convince Tally to join it too, without success.

Another main character is David, the son of the Smoke’s leaders, Maddy and Az (two doctors), and one of Tally’s love interests in the series. He and Shay are the first to find Tally, he teaches to Tally the ropes of being a Smokie and Tally decides to stay. David is eighteen year old, he has a crooked smile and a scar through his eyebrow, and he has a serious look and wearing a leather jacket patched and other natural clothes. He is intelligent, and carries to Tally.

Uglies sees Tally Youngblood as a 15 year old in Uglyville, where her best friend Peris has just turned pretty. All she dreams of is her 16th birthday when she will become pretty and go to live in New Pretty Town. But then she befriends Shay, a rebellious girl who has the same birthday as Tally. When Shay runs away to the Smoke (the resistance), where other Uglies live in a Rusty (what we know as our world now) lifestyle. But Shay runs away just before her 16th birthday, leaving Tally

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