Specials

Tally Youngblood has been transformed many times over. First, she was an ordinary Ugly, awaiting the cosmetic surgery that will make her into a more socially acceptable Pretty. Now, Tally has become a Special, or a surgically enhanced super-human, as well as a member of an elite group that call themselves the Cutters. In Scott Westerfeld’s Specials, a young adult novel published in 2006, Tally is tasked with upholding the conventions of her socially stratified city. It is a future dystopia, where surgery is employed not only to modify the body but also to control the mind. Tally and her Cutters must intercept the pills that begin to flood their city, pills that cure these modifications. The authorities are invested in keeping the populace docile; they do not wish to repeat the mistakes of the Rusties who, three hundred years earlier, obliterated their civilization with war and environmental destruction. Westerfeld’s tetralogy—which includes the previous novels, Uglies (2005) and Pretties (2005), and the concluding book, Extras (2007)—explores the inherent conflict between authoritarian control and individual autonomy.

This guide is based on the 2021 Simon & Schuster paperback edition.