{"id":238,"date":"2012-03-09T09:48:50","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T15:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/?p=238"},"modified":"2014-10-28T08:50:16","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T13:50:16","slug":"review-uglies-and-extras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/?p=238","title":{"rendered":"Review: Uglies and Extras"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read and loved Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies<\/a> trilogy well before I started this blog, so I haven’t reviewed it here. And anyway, you’ve probably already read it. Briefly: compelling, great world building, insightful cultural commentary, A+. But I only recently read Extras<\/a>, the fourth book of the former-trilogy. I was a little nervous about it–I felt like Specials had pretty well wrapped up the trilogy, and I wasn’t sure what new ground Extras would cover.<\/p>\n

\"Extras<\/a>
Extras by Scott Westerfeld<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unfortunately, I don’t think Westerfeld was sure either. The book takes place a few years after Specials and reveals how one city has rebuilt itself after the “mindrain” that cured everyone from their “bubbleheaded” Pretty days. In this city, which seems to be somewhere in present-day Japan, everything is ruled by a Twitter\/Klout-esque Reputation Economy, where the more famous you are, the more resources you get. It’s never clearly explained how this works, and I just didn’t find it to be as believable of a premise as I did the original Uglies world.<\/p>\n

Anyway, in this book, we follow 15-year-old Asa Fuse, who is attempting to build up her “face rank” through citizen journalism. She stumbles into a clique called the Sly Girls and they end up discovering… something. Is it a weapon?<\/p>\n

I won’t give away the ending, but I found it to be a bit hard to swallow. Perhaps if Westerfeld had dedicated an entire trilogy to this concept it would have been more believable, but as is, it feels like what it is–a tacked on fourth book because everyone loved the trilogy so much and wanted a fourth book. Sometimes, guys, you’re better off sticking with fanfiction.<\/p>\n

\"Sharon<\/a>
\nI rate the original Uglies trilogy five plastic surgeons out of a possible five.<\/p>\n

Extras is two plastic surgeons out of a possible five.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read and loved Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy well before I started this blog, so I haven’t reviewed it here. And anyway, you’ve probably already read it. Briefly: compelling, great world building, insightful cultural commentary, A+. But I only recently read Extras, the fourth book of the former-trilogy. I was a little nervous about it–I… Continue reading Review: Uglies and Extras<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[136,190,134,189,7,76],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-review","tag-extras","tag-scott-westerfeld","tag-uglies","tag-ya-lit","tag-ya-literature","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frowl.org\/whyablog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}