Uglies #2

The main purpose of this book is to emphasize how American culture revolves around looks. In the book, the main goal of every person is to become beautiful, which, at age sixteen, everyone eventually becomes. Today, Americans go to similar lengths, though maybe not as drastic, in order to feel beautiful. The characters, termed "uglies", who have not yet had the operation that turns them beautiful, have no hope of ever feeling beautiful until after the operation; they have accepted themselves as naturally ugly only because society tells them so. All the people that we deem to be attractive now would be considered ugly in the book because they, for the most part, look similar to the way they were meant to look. The society depicted in "Uglies" is not so different than our society now in America, and perhaps, in a distant future, we could become even more similar. In the book, people have surgery to become beautiful, a surgery in which all of their skin in sanded away and plastic bones are put into their faces in order to reshape them. This is exactly what plastic surgery does, although the technology is more antiquated and the results are not as drastic. But in the future, if our technology keeps evolving at the rate that it is now, it is plausible to say that a procedure similar to the one in "Uglies" would be invented, one that will completely change the way someone looks. This book describes a possible future for American Society. And, honestly, one that doesn't sound so terrible. It is bad to have a society that revolves around looks, like America has right now. But in "Uglies," no one is left out when it comes to beauty, everyone is on the same playing field. As opposed to America now, where there are many different levels of beauty, the highest of which only some can obtain and others are criticised for not obtaining. The though of automatically being beautiful no matter what you looked like before the operation sounds kind of nice, even though it is a very superficial thing to say. It would be fair, and people would be happier. But then there are the people that do not want to be beautiful, like Tally's friend Shay, which is admirable; they want to be "themselves" and not what the surgeons decide to make them look like. I can understand that too.