Title: Specials
Author: Scott Westerfeld
ISBN: 9781416947950/Simon & Schuster
Protagonist: teenager Tally Youngblood
Setting: a Southern California distopia, three hundred years in the future
Series: #3
Rating: A

First Line: The six hoverboards slipped among the trees with the lightning grace of playing cards thrown flat and spinning.

The world as we know it has disappeared. In its place are city states, each with its own rules. Tally Youngblood's city has decided that, at the age of sixteen, everyone becomes a surgically altered "pretty" and spends the next decade or so of their lives wondering what clothes to wear and which nightly parties to attend. At first, Tally bought into the entire pretty culture, but adventures in the previous books of this series have made her look at life differently. In this third installment, she has been surgically altered yet again to become a "special"--people with extra capabilities who work in a branch of the city government that seems quite a bit like military police. People recruited as specials have shown that they think "outside the box"--usually by escaping the city and trying to find those who live out in the "wild". Tally's greatest desire is to have Zane become a special, and to do that, he has to make an escape...with Tally shadowing his every move.

I have really been enjoying this series. In so many ways, Tally is a typical teenager, but there's something inside her that refuses to toe the party line, and her development and growth as a human being is what makes this series so special. Westerfeld has created a world that is very different from ours, but with just enough similarities to make the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I have the next book in the series, Extras, on my TBR stack, and I'm looking forward to reading it.

If you're interested in reading Specials, be warned: it really should not be read as a standalone. Westerfeld has created an entire world, and for many of the things to make sense, you should start at the beginning with Uglies and then Pretties.

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I really like this series because it is geared toward teenagers (although adults can also enjoy it) but it deals with the struggles of humanity and utopia. very much like the giver on a more adventurous level. I recommend this book series for adults and children alike.

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I'm not sure I'm entirely satisfied by the ending of the book, but it does make sense with the overall story. But it made me think a lot about our world and also about figuring out who you are, which is hard enough for teenagers - can you imagine being a teenager and being changed so much like Tally by forces outside your control?

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Bring out the tissues for this one! I cried during a spot in the book. The ending of the trilogy really makes you think, especially about how one person can change the world for better or worse. Plus this book makes you wonder about our lives in the future, could we become so obsessive over being pretty that we create everyone into what the government determines to be pretty? A good read, especially if you want a book that makes you think.

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I didn't enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed book one and two. It was okay. I got burned on the series after this book and decided not to read the next one.

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thoroughly enjoyed.

If you enjoyed hunger games, you would like this series!

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Specials is the third and best installment of Scott Westerfeld's young adult dystopian series. Tally is now reconfigured as a Cutter, part of her friend Shay's young elite clique within Special Circumstances. Icy and random are the new 'in' words; pretties are now relegated to 'bubblehead' status. I enjoyed this book more because it felt more like an epic adventure with interesting plot twists and turns rather than a bunch of young pranksters having their adolescent rebellion. I'm more motivated to read the next book, Extras.

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The final installment of the "Uglies" trilogy basically wraps up the story, although there is another book in the series that takes place several years later.

In Specials, as the title suggests, Tally and some of her friends have been transformed into "Specials," short for "Special Circumstances." which is like the secret police of their society. Tally is a "Cutter" a team of Special Specials, surgically modified to be able to live in the wild, stay awake for days on end, smell their prey from miles away along with the prey's emotions, etc., etc.

The series as a whole was an interesting, quick read.

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OMG! I was shocked with the outcome of this book. I never saw it coming.

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This is a very popular book with middle school girls. Mine couldn't wait to get this!

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I was not impressed by this book, as there are just too many things that don't add up and are conveniently missed in order to prolong the story. How this happens when they've got so many gizmos and gadgets is a mystery. I only made myself read it to find out what happens after I made it through the first two books and because I was silly and bought the whole series, which wouldn't have mattered, since the first book showed such promise. And since the second book wasn't half-bad, I would've ended up with this one anyway. It was really disappointing, though, to see the series pull a "Twilight" and go downhill with each consecutive book. If I read the 4th, it'll be because I got it via a credit.

First off, I just have to say that this series has been full of cliches. It's managed to have 1) a controlled society, 2) a jealous best friend, 3) the overly done love triangle where someone has to die so Tally's choice of which boy to pick is made for her, 4) betrayal and backstabbing, and my favorite 5) the disapproving future mother-in-law 6) Dr. Evil... ah hem, I mean Dr. Cable. I was almost anticipating aliens to come out of the woodwork and be behind everything.

This book manages to add to the annoying vocabulary with the new term "Icy" which is used by the Cutters to describe various things. You'll know what I mean if you made it through Bubbly & Bogus.

Since the previous books were named after groups Tally belonged to, this book really should've been named "Cutters" since they're the new, elite force of Specials Tally belongs to and think they're better than the rest of the Specials. Of course, that would've been politically incorrect and parents would've been less incline to buy the book for their children. Especially if they knew that this group was into self-mutilation in order to help them "think better". Granted, it eventually was mentioned as a bad thing, but that took awhile.

I don't understand how Tally manages to be the heroine, as most of what she does or what happens to her is the result of it being someone else's idea or by accident. It's very seldom that anything is originally her idea and not a ride-along for someone else. Plus, she seems pretty good at jinxing things and/or taking the blame. Can we say TSTL? Of course that doesn't matter when someone's usually saving her butt, even though they may have hated her.

It's also amazing at how easily she succumbs to this peer pressure. She readily adapts to whatever situation she is living in and accepts that society's view as "right". When she's in Smoke, she supports the Smokies, when she's in her city, she thinks like them, when she made it to Diego, she suddenly saw their lifestyle as the one for her. I don't recall ever reading a character so wishy-washy.

I however, did like how it ended. (Not just because the thing was over.) I liked the letter of warning that Tally & David gave about the cities needing to be careful and not making the same mistakes with the environment like they did before. It backs up the underlying message in the books of how some parts of progress can be devastating to the world around us.

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I liked this series. I really did. But it took me forever to get through this book! I wasn't as in love with the whole thing by this point I guess. Or maybe I just don't like when Tally turns in to someone other than herself.

Part of me started to get annoyed with these books. The main characters value being pretty above everything and think they are better than everyone and now they are cutting themselves to get "icy"?? Not the best example. It all turns out with a good moral story in the end, but I don't know...I just didn't love them. Something was off about the storyline to me. They just didn't sit right with me in the end.

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My young teenage daughter loves this series. It is one of the few she's ask to have in her personal library. The Middle School library copies are checked out just as soon as they are returned.

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