BOOKS AND MOVIES

Posted By CarrieK on May 3, 2009

Title: Specials
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Genre: YA dystopian novel
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
First line: The six hoverboards slipped among the trees with the lightning grace of playing cards thrown flat and spinning.

Specials is the third book in Scott Westerfeld’s YA dystopian series, following Uglies and Pretties. I didn’t like this one as well as the first two. I still enjoyed it, but it didn’t impress me as much as the first two, and there were times that I found myself wishing to just get to the end to see what happened.

There’s really no way to review this book without spoilers from Uglies and Pretties, so if you’re intending to read them, you might want to skip the rest of the review.

Pretties ended with a cliff-hanger similar to the one that ended Uglies, only instead of being turned Pretty, Tally was turned Special. Specials opens with her a member of the Cutters, Dr. Cable’s elite team of Special Circumstances operatives. The team is led by Shay. Tally loves everything about being Special, but still misses Zane, and worries about him. He’s back in New Pretty Town, now with a sensor around his neck that keeps him from escaping, and still dealing with the results of taking only one of the pills designed to cure the lesions all Pretties have on their brains.

Shay comes up with a plan to break Zane out of New Pretty Town and get him the help he needs to be cured, with the intention of then making him Special and a part of the Cutters. What Shay and Tally don’t know is that their plan will start an inter-city war and result in the world being changed irrevocably.

I didn’t connect with Tally as well in this third book, probably because the changes made to her brain when she became Special make her an elitist snob who looked down on anyone weaker than her. I really wanted to see her brain changed back to normal, for her to finally be free of the forced surgeries and the brain alterations. I wanted to see her happy with Zane in the New Smoke.

However, I think the ending Westerfeld wrote was more realistic, when considering what kind of person Tally would be after going through so many involuntary transformations. The romantic in me simply wanted a happier ending. Another thing that bugged me was the way that Shay kept telling Tally that she was selfish – that the choices she made were always self-centered. I don’t believe that – at least, not after her decision to track Shay to the New Smoke for Dr. Cable. Her time in the New Smoke changed her, and I don’t believe that her personality was fundamentally selfish, which Shay continually implied. I would have liked to see that issue resolved – if not between Shay and Tally, then at least in Tally’s own mind.

Westerfeld has done a good job of creating a world that is all-too-believable, and also dealing with some of the same issues raised in fiction like Brave New World, but in a way that completely entertains the intended audience, all while making the reader think. I’m looking forward to reading the fourth book in the series, Extras.

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Categories: YA fiction, reviews, science fiction
Tags: dystopian fiction, scott westerfeld, YA fiction