Specials (Uglies #3) by Scott Westerfeld : Book Review

Title: Specials
Series: Uglies #3
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published Date: May 9th 2006
Genre: Dystopia, Adventure, Science Fiction, YA
Page Count: 384
Format: Hardcover

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Goodreads 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.
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 My Review:

"This decision was about who Tally Youngblood was inside, whether ugly or pretty or special." 

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

This book started only three months after the last one ended. With Tally now a Special and one of Shay’s group known as the cutters. They are Dr. Cable’s specials they do her bidding and know more about the cure more than anyone else in the city, and they are to stop it from getting to all of the new pretties in pretty town. Once they start this mission and follow all of Shay’s orders they realize that it has been entering pretty town for a while now. This starts a new mission, one where they must find the new smoke and destroy it all on their own. The only problem is that Tally remembers her old life, and what it was like, she still loves Zane and wants to help him get better and bubbly again. But she also realizes the problems that becoming bubbly creates now, and she is torn.

Once Tally finds a way to get Zane to be special, she decides to use any means necessary to make it happen. With Shay’s help they find a way for him to leave the city and find the smokies, but he isn’t okay and Tally really struggles with this, she loves him, but she can’t stand to see him.

Along the journey to find the smokies, we really start to see all of the changes Dr. Cable made to her and how terrifying specials are. What we don’t expect though is where the new smokies are, or who they now have helping them as well.  

But when they try to change Tally back to being “normal” she doesn’t want it and she decides instead to become the person who monitors everything that happens in the outside world with David’s help. Yes David and Tally are finally working together again, not in a relationship, but friends of sort.

I can’t wait to see what happens in the final book, and how Westerfeld decides to end it all. 

“ I love you all. But it's time to say good-bye, for now. 

be careful with the world, or the next time we meet, it might get ugly.

-Tally Youngblood”