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Summary
Summary
"Special Circumstances":The words have sent chills down Tally's spine since her days as a repellent, rebellious ugly. Back then Specials were a sinister rumor -- frighteningly beautiful, dangerously strong, breathtakingly fast. Ordinary pretties might live their whole lives without meeting a Special. But Tally's never been ordinary.And now she's been turned into one of them: a superamped fighting machine, engineered to keep the uglies down and the pretties stupid.The strength, the speed, and the clarity and focus of her thinking feel better than anything Tally can remember. Most of the time. One tiny corner of her heart still remembers something more.Still, it's easy to tune that out -- until Tally's offered a chance to stamp out the rebels of the New Smoke permanently. It all comes down to one last choice: listen to that tiny, faint heartbeat, or carry out the mission she's programmed to complete. Either way, Tally's world will never be the same.
Author Notes
Scott Westerfeld was born in Dallas, Texas on May 5, 1963. He received a degree in philosophy from Vassar College in 1985. Before becoming a full time writer, he held several jobs including factory worker, software designer, editor, and substitute teacher. His works for young adults include the Uglies series, the Midnighters series, and The Last Days. He is the co-author of the Zeroes series written with Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti. He also writes science fiction novels for adults. He has won numerous awards including a Special Citation for the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award for Evolution's Darling, a Victorian Premier's Award for So Yesterday, and an Aurealis Award for The Secret Hour.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-This final installment in the series is a warning of the dangers of overconsumption and conformity. Set some time in the future, after a human-made bacteria destroyed the modern world, the trilogy tells of new cities established and tightly controlled through brainwashing and a series of operations leading to a compliant society. Tally Youngblood, the 16-year-old protagonist, learns in the first two books that free will and truth are more important than a false sense of security. In Specials, she has become an elite fighting machine, fully enhanced with nanotechnology and super-fast reflexes, and made to work as a Special Circumstances agent for the nameless city that she fled. As in the first two books, much of the story takes place with characters whizzing through the air on hoverboards, but Tally and her friends are in for some harsh realities here. Readers who enjoyed Uglies and Pretties (both S & S, 2005) will not want to miss Specials, but those who have not read those books will not understand much of what is happening. Westerfeld's themes include vanity, environmental conservation, Utopian idealism, fascism, violence, and love. In this trilogy, the author calls for a revolution in our hearts and minds-think The Matrix.-Corinda J. Humphrey, Los Angeles Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bringing the Uglies trilogy to a close, Specials by Scott Westerfeld follows Tally Youngblood, first met in Uglies (which PW said "introduces thought-provoking issues"), as she is turned into a Special, a high-octane fighting machine, programmed to keep the uglies down and the pretties stupid. Can she listen to the small voice in her head or will she destroy New Smoke's residents? (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) In the final volume of the trilogy that began with Uglies, Tally Youngblood has now gone beyond being a ""pretty"" and is now a ""special,"" one of an elite force with a gorgeous but lethal physique and superhuman athletic ability. The goal of a pretty was to be ""bubbly,"" but now Tally's goal is to stay ""icy"" -- not easy once she and her friend Shay accidentally destroy a weapons armory, leading to war with a neighboring city. As the gripping plot progresses, Tally struggles with the underlying question of her identity; she also realizes that the issues that initially seemed very clearly divided between good and evil are far more nuanced than she had thought, that power needs resistance in order to keep it from becoming corrupted. Westerfeld's writing is never subtle, but he lets readers get beneath Tally's beautiful skin and brings the trilogy to a humane conclusion with a surprising twist. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Tally's third incarnation is thrillingly unsettling. When readers left her, she was about to be surgically altered from a "Pretty" to a carefully engineered military "Special." Now her body is weaponized, her teeth, fingernails and reflexes razor-sharp. Westerfeld deftly conveys Tally's new perspective: Edges look extra sharp, the world is maniacally beautiful and Dr. Cable's pursuit of the New Smoke rebels is inherently justified, especially because the New Smoke's irresponsible medical experimentation damaged Tally's boyfriend Zane and made him repulsive. Tally and Shay are Cutters, elite Specials who slice their skin to stay hyper-focused. As they track runaways to find the New Smoke, the previously two-sided fight expands into a war with multiple stances and complications, on a far broader scale than Tally could have guessed. Tally's in constant motion, the action nonstop, all the way until--paralleling the stunning end of Uglies--Tally makes an unromantic, pragmatic and desperate final decision. A splendid, provocative conclusion to a terrific series. (Science fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 7-10. After stints as a back-to-nature rebel ( Uglies, 0 2004), and as a "bubbleheaded" specimen of physical perfection ( Pretties, 0 2005) ,0 16-year-old Tally undergoes another dramatic reversal in this conclusion to Westerfeld's blockbuster trilogy. She now belongs to a turbocharged commando unit designed to quash resistance to the government's mass surgical (and neurosurgical) campaigns. Though at first a model Special, enamored of her "almost above human" status, several brushes with her past force her to question the price of her transformation as the stakes escalate. Some plot elements, especially Tally's gradual groping toward independent thought, may strike readers as rather similar to devices used in the preceding books, and the setup feels overcomplicated. But series fans will still relish this final visit to Westerfeld's dystopian world, in which details of the cultlike Specials, especially their imagination-grabbing gadgetry, inventively combine with the premise's winning themes: free will, self-image, and teen-powered subversion of authority. --Jennifer Mattson Copyright 2006 Booklist