3.5 stars. Every once in a while, a book will draw me to it because the story idea reminds me of something else. Uglies as a concept reminded me very much of a classic Twilight Zone episode. Don't ask me to remember the name, but it involved normal looking people choosing a new face and body for themselves out of a catalog. Surprisingly enough, this book actually was sort of a similar type of story, but it went far beyond the initial change in society and let us get a glimpse of a world in which no one is allowed to be ugly. 
 First off, I'm going to say that I may just not be the hugest fan of Westerfield's writing style. I enjoyed one of his other books (Leviathan), but it wasn't one of my recent favorites either. I am very much a "want it now" kind of person when it comes to books. I want to be right in the middle of the action, and I don't really care that it took you 10 pages to get somewhere on the hoverboard. That's just me, though. For others it's fascinating world building - for me, it's filler. 
 That said, I did like "most" of the story and enjoyed where this book was going. There were some conflicts and problems that arose at the end which have left me curious for book 2. Even with the few complaints that I did have about this book, I will absolutely read the next installment Pretties, just to see what happens to Tally, David, Shay and Perris now. 
 In the paraphrased words of Twilight Zone : "Without ugliness, there can be no true beauty."