Valet Reader

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

What I may not have noticed in the first book in this series Uglies may very well be the downfall of the whole series. You see, I have this problem with chapter naming. If you’re going to name a chapter rather than use a number, letter or symbol make it something unique, creative or interesting. Do not just throw a word out there that basically describes what the whole chapter is going to be about. It took me until I was about halfway through the book to really put it together, but if you actually pay attention to the chapter titles I think you can get away with not actually reading the chapter. Sure you need some background but honestly it wouldn’t be that hard. I actually wrote down all the chapter names and am going to try and use them in this review just for the hell of it (some will be obvious but let’s see how many of the less obvious ones you can catch).

Despite my problem with the chapter titles, I will not charge Mr. Westerfeld as a criminal (get, it, “criminal” is the first chapter) and ruining his own book. The novel itself was actually quite good, to incessantly bash it would be unfair. I wouldn’t want to be a lurker and not write about how I felt about the story, more specifically the rise and fall of the main character in the series, Tally.

Crap, I give up, I’m not doing this whole chapter titles in the post thing. I’m already struggling. I mean how the hell am I supposed to use “Valentino 317″ or “bubbly making” in my review. I had written another paragraph but it didn’t even make sense to me so I scrapped it. Please forgive me.

I’m of the philosophy that if you start a series and like it, even marginally, you really have to continue and try the second. So, that’s what I’ve done and I suggest you do the same.

Pretties may be relatively predictable (even if you don’t count the chapter titles) yet I still enjoyed reading it. The action and adventure was there just as it was in the first book and the dystopic theme which Westerfeld introduced in Uglies is carried on. There aren’t a whole lot of new characters so it was easy to recall how they interact without requiring a detailed description. There were some unusual inconsistencies, or rather just plane oddities, regarding the love triangle that didn’t translate from one book to the other but I found these to be irrelevant, it is a young adult novel after all. I’m also fairly confident that you could pretty much find each of the ideas espoused in this series inside those Teen magazines at your local supermarket but I guess I should be grateful, now I no longer need to buy them (I kid, I really don’t read them).

Hmm, does this review seem some wishy washy? Does it trouble you that I say I liked it and then continue to point out things that are wrong with it? Well, deal with it. That’s just the way it is. Either way, I do plan on reading the third and final book in the series Specials. I am a little skeptical of the final installment but with any luck I’ll be a little more open minded in 2010.

Wow, that reminds me, this is my last post of 2009, yeeehaw!! Well, Happy New Year everyone and look out for me in 2010.