We are always told, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, but there are some rare exceptions. Luckily, I’ve encountered one of these exceptions. Ever since I passed by the book Uglies, I knew that I had to get a hold of that book. Once I did, I wasn’t able to put it down. I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next. At first, I didn’t know it was a trilogy, but when I found out, I was more than thrilled. After Uglies, it was Pretties, then Specials. However, no one was expecting the Extras, because it was a sci-fi trilogy. Yet, now it’s safe to say that it’s a series.
In the past, there was this “rule” and I can’t say much, because it will ruin it. Basically, the city was divided and labeled into three major groups-uglies, pretties, and crumblies- and one hidden group that controlled everyone and everything. Before the people were sixteen, in this extremely futuristic and high-tech city, they were considered ugly. However, on their sixteenth birthday, they got plastic surgery and became pretty. As a result of their surgery, they had nothing to worry about except parties and having fun. Of course, there were different cliques, groups of friends -almost like the ones we have today. Although these things still apply, they never had to worry about face ranks and popularity like Aya Fuse does in Extras.
Aya is known as a “kicker” in her city. Kicker meaning she posts videos, different stories, and tries to hang out with higher face ranked people to get “pinged” and move her own face rank up. Just like the paparazzi, kickers aren’t liked that much, but that’s what they have to do to get popularity rank they desire.
As the book goes on, we meet the Sly Girls who become secretive and strange friends of Aya’s. Not to mention what Aya discovers… but she’s so psyched when her story is kicked at this party, that she doesn’t even think about what might happen afterwards. Luckily, her perspective changes when Tally sends her a message saying “Run and hide. We’re on our way”.
This proving that Extras has a little different plot line than the other three books. In the beginning, it starts a little bit slow and boring, but once we get towards the middle portion of the book it starts to get much more interesting and fast-paced. As I was reading, I tried to predict what would happen next. Except, it’s one of those books were we think we know what’s going to happen and agree with what the characters think, but we become dumbfounded.
I loved reading this book, because once again Scott Westerfeld amazed me. I would suggest reading the first three books before this one, but Extras can be read and understood without knowing exactly what occurred in the past. However, as much as I liked this book and its series, I would have to say that it’s definitely a book for young adults. Adults can and might read this book, but it won’t have the same effect that it does on teenagers. Besides his use of smart comments and dialogue, detailed imagery, word choice and creativity, his messages were mind-blowing. Occasionally, we need to read books like these to make us wonder more about our present, past, and future. When I finished reading it, the first thing I thought to myself was, “Hmmm….I wonder if this series is foreshadowing what our own future holds for us someday…”.
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