Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

 Do not read this review unless you have already read Uglies or don't mind being spoiled. My review for Uglies is located here!

 Synopsis (From the Waterstones Website)

Tally has finally become 'pretty'. Her looks are beyond perfect, her clothes are cool, her boyfriend is totally gorgeous, and she's completely popular. It's everything she's ever wanted. But beneath all the fun - the non-stop parties, the high-tech luxury, the total freedom - is a nagging feeling that something is very wrong. Something important. And sure enough, when a message from Tally's 'ugly' past arrives, the fun stops cold. Now Tally has to choose between fighting to forget what she knows and fighting for her life...

What I Have to Say

I think that Pretties really lived up to the standard set by the first book. For one thing Westerfeld managed to smoothly do the recapping the story thing, that authors seem to think they have to do.  Because Tally's pretty-brain is affecting her memory she is slowly getting her memories back. It means that the reader gets reminded what's previously happened without it being intrusive or info dumpy. It's just smoothly worked into the story.

I thought that the book was really well written and it was just as good as the last one, so if you enjoyed Uglies you're likely to enjoy Pretties! :)

My comments still stand about the world and characters, I still love the world Scott Westerfeld described with it's dark secrets, but what struck me most was the slang that was used throughout the book.

Slang can be done badly in books, but it's really fun to read when it's done well. And I think that part of the reasons is how integral the slang was to the plot. Tally and Zane seemed to find it much easier to hide what they were saying and indeed the fact that they were bubbly because slang is very prominent in the Pretty personality. 

It also made it very easy to adapt what they where saying. Slang is often very easy to understand what they were saying. Slang is often very easy to adapt into code and the fact that the crims could convey that they where feeling less pretty-brained by being bubbly. It really works well to convey how much they're having to hide their conversations and how clever they're being. It's just very well constructed, with so much detail. It really feels that Westerfeld has thought about everything.

If every book had this much detail without becoming too infodumpy, then books would be so much better than they are now.