November 8, 2021
Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
The basics
Title: Pretties
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Series: Uglies #2
- Uglies (2005) - Pretties (2005) - Specials (2006) - Extras (2006)
Add it: Goodreads
Goodreads Summary:
Tally has finally become pretty. Now her looks are beyond perfect, her clothes are awesome, her boyfriend is totally hot, and she's completely popular. It's everything she's ever wanted. But beneath all the fun -- the nonstop parties, the high-tech luxury, the total freedom -- is a nagging sense that something's wrong. Something important. Then a message from Tally's ugly past arrives. Reading it, Tally remembers what's wrong with pretty life, and the fun stops cold. Now she has to choose between fighting to forget what she knows and fighting for her life -- because the authorities don't intend to let anyone with this information survive.
Read a full summary of Pretties by Scott Westerfeld below. If you can’t remember what happened in Pretties and you need a refresher, then you’re in the right place.
what happened in Pretties?
- Tally is now Pretty in order to infiltrate the Special Circumstances division. The only issue is, she can’t remember much of what happened or why she’s now Pretty.
- She goes to a party and is followed by one of the Specials. She figures out that it’s actually Croy, who lived in the Smoke in the first book. He says he has something that she must look for.
- Tally expects to be voted into a clique called the Crims. Its leader, Zane, asks her questions about David.
- Zane admits that he used to be friends with Croy and was going to head to the Smoke but then he became Pretty instead. He regrets this, and so offers to help Tally find whatever it is that Croy was talking about.
- The pair end up finding a letter that Tally wrote and signed in the first book, giving her consent to have reversal surgery to cure her Prettiness and her brain lesions.
- Zane and Tally take the cure but they have to still pretend to be Pretty and brain damaged.
- Tally tells Shay about the pills, who gets upset because she wanted them too to be “bubbly”.
- Shay starts her own clique called the Cutters.
- Zane starts getting headaches, which may be a side effect of the pills. He goes for treatment but it doesn’t seem to work.
- Tally and Zane head to New Smoke to escape Special Circumstances and to find help for Zane. They take a few people along with them, including Peris.
- Peris changes his mind and he and Tally get into a bit of a scuffle.
- Tally falls into a reservation, which is where scientists put people to study their behaviour. The people there think Tally may be a god.
- Andrew is the only person at the reservation who speaks Tally’s language, so she’s able to communicate with him.
- Tally is able to escape to the Rusty Ruins. She bumps into David, who wants to take her to New Smoke.
- At New Smoke, Maddy tells Tally that she took the pills wrong. She was supposed to take BOTH pills, not split them with Zane. Zane’s pill ate his brain. I feel like she probably should have warned Tally about this before…
- Tally’s pill had no effect whatsoever, so Tally actually became unPretty herself.
- When Zane was in the hospital in Pretty Town, the Specials put a tracker in his tooth. The Specials come to New Smoke.
- Tally stays with Zane and David is all ?!?! because he thought she loved him.
- Tally gets angry and wants David to leave (mostly so he won’t be caught by the Specials) so she shouts at him and calls him ugly.
- The Specials catch Tally. She’s taken back to Pretty Town, where she finds out that Shay is now Special… and Tally is turned into a Special too.
That was our recap of what happened in Pretties by Scott Westerfeld. Check out our recap list for more plot summaries, and if you can’t find what you need you can request a recap here!
