The Uglies series

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Uglies
Author	Scott Westerfeld
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Young adult, Science fiction novel
Publisher	Simon & Schuster
Publication date	2004
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)

The Uglies series is a young adult book series by Scott Westerfeld. The story follows a teenage girl named Tally who lives several centuries from now in a futuristic city where you're a "littlie" until you turn twelve, when you go to live in an ugly dorm. Uglies are educated and brainwashed into thinking they're hideous until they turn 16, when they get an operation that turns them into beautiful, vulnerable-looking, perfect, averaged-out, middle-of-the-bell-curve "Pretties". Right after the operation, they are "New Pretties", self-absorbed fools whose only purpose in life seems to be to party. "Middle Pretties" have picked their professions and gone through a second, minor operation that makes them look older and wiser; "Late Pretties", or "Crumblies", are parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. The point of these operations is to stop wars and disagreements among people just because they look differently from each other, and it is later discovered that the operation gives people brain-damage (e.g., brain lesions), eliminating disputes, anger, unhappiness, creativity, despair, or a desire to be different.

The series, originally designed to be a trilogy, has four books, with the fourth released in 2007. The fourth book, Extras, takes place a few years after the mind-rain brought about by Tally Youngblood, the main character of the proper trilogy (Uglies/Pretties/Specials), which ended the Prettytime. Aya Fuse's (main character of the fourth book) city now runs on a "fame economy" which could be compared to extreme nonobjectivity, which was invented when it was discovered that non-bubbleheads consume way too many resources to keep the Prettytime economy afloat.