Specials by Scott Westerfeld

Old Review Alert! We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important announcement: Thanks for checking out my review for this book! Just be aware that it’s an old review and not up to my current standards. ~ Thank you! :)Specials by Scott Westerfeld
Title: Specials
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Series: Uglies, #3
Genres: Dystopian, Sci-Fi, Young Adult
Publisher: Simon Pulse (Imprint of Simon & Schuster)
Date Published: May 9th, 2006
Edition: Paperback
Rating:

“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.

My Review:

First of all I liked this book a lot better than the second, but probably not as much as the first. The entire series has been a little disturbing for me in some respects

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(ex. ditching David for Zane, not caring about her friends, etc.).

But I did like some things about this book. It had a sense of resolution in most respects, some things were left a mystery a bit.

View Spoiler »

For instance, did her and David get back together while in the wild?

But for the most part it wrapped it up in my mind.

View Spoiler »

Some things I didn’t like:
– That Zane died. Although I thought it was really cold and terrible of her to ditch David like that, I did like Zane. I guess Scott had to kill off one of them or do something to have a resolution because her and David were left hanging there in limbo. I don’t generally like such a struggle when it comes to love interests between two characters that are good people. But I guess that adds drama and interest.
– Although I’m happy he did, it seems unrealistic to me that David would forgive her and stand by her so much at the end. Don’t get me wrong, he was a breath of fresh air at the end when everything seemed to be falling apart. But, in the real world, after all she did to hurt him, I don’t think he would have been so forgiving.
– The “Cutters”. This is just terrible and I don’t think it was really necessary for the series. This really should have been done another way. It gives off the impression that it’s okay and acceptable to do this sort of thing. I did not like that at all.
– I’m not sure how I feel or if I don’t like that she didn’t change back to her normal self. I was kind of always hoping she would, realizing she’s “special” just the way she is. But no, she wasn’t apparently for the ending of this book. I think it’s cool she’ll be using her “powers” for good. But I still had wishful thinking about that.
– I also did not like how it ended all environmentally. What was that about? Basically the lesson of the series is to not be like us (the Rusties). I thought it should be more about friendships and relationships and individualism at the end, rather than “don’t cut down trees or we’ll find you”.

Why did I give it 4 stars then? Well despite all of that, I did really like this book and series. It kept me interested and reading and it had a lot of action in it. It resolved a lot of her friendships that had gone down the tubes and it was just a fun read all around.

However, there are some bad messages in this book. It just gives off some really terrible messages about body image, how you view others, hurting yourself and putting yourself in danger, how terrible we (the Rusties) are because we need oil and wood and other elements to survive, and just basically some things I don’t agree with. It is a fun read, but keep in mind that these messages are not to be imprinted on you. This is a fiction book and it’s messages should be taken as such – fiction.

4 Hearts More Reviews Goodreads | AmazonPurchase Links Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes & Noble

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