Pretty Time vs. Rusties

Today is my birthday and I'm writing a blog post! Woo hoo! But I do have something interesting to write about.

I just finished the book called Extras and I really enjoyed it. It's the last book of the series Uglies and it sums up their world in this last book. If you haven't read any of the books in this series I suggest you do. But if you don't plan on reading them then I'll give you my own little overview to the books. They take place on this earth in a time called Pretty Time, and in reality, the only reason they live is to be famous. They don't have money, they just have a whole in their wall that gives you the outfit that you'll need for the day, and no one cares what you wear, it's not a fight to who has the best brand of jeans, because everyone has the same. Each Ugly gets kind of like an apartment of their own. And their walls talk to them and have wall monitors that tell you what's happening throughout out the town. They are regular humans that lived in a very technical and high advanced world. You go to school until you are sixteen. And then you pretty much get to choose the way you will live for the rest of your life. But at age fifteen, each teen lives in agony through the year dreadfully waiting to advance and be of age and be released into Prettyville and to then start making decisions for themselves. But the whole fifteenth year is said to be the worst and the longest year of anyone's whole life because they sit around for a whole year waiting for the minute they turn sixteen to finally be let out into a world where they can then make decisions for themselves. It's almost like our world having to endure that seventeenth year just waiting to be eighteen and be free. But their agony is ten times worse because a lot more happens when you turn sixteen. When you turn twelve you are then considered an Ugly, and then once you turn sixteen you have the choice to become a Pretty. You become a Pretty by getting a surgery that will fix your nose, give you more muscle, add surges (tatoos), add an eye screen, better body etc.. Pretty much anything that will make you more beautiful. The big thing in the Pretty world is your nose. For some reason they have a serious thing about noses and that's the first thing they want fixed. You can always catch an Ugly by their unsurged nose.
In Ugly school's (which is just like junior high) you learn everything you'll need to survive the world. There is no more school after you hit sixteen. But in every year of Ugly school, the biggest class that you have to take is history. In this class they learn about the Rusty generation which is the generation that you and me live in right now. So these books are kind of like the supposed future of our world. But they talk about how no one ever got along in the Rusty world and how the people who weren't famous didn't want to be famous, they wanted to have the image and body of the famous people. And they would talk about how girls would starve themselves to have the perfect body, or they would smoke weird substances to be cool. This, to them, was just plainly bazaar because in their world it's a fight to be famous and have a very simple surgery that makes you skinnier or more buff. So to them, us Rusties were pretty strage. They would also learn about how we had so many wars over things that weren't necessary, and we fought them with bullets and bombs. And they fight with electric objects, lasers, hoverboards, you name it! Pretty much anything thats high tech.
But the whole point of this blog is how true a lot of the analogies from this book are. We fight over the weirdest things! And we are in a competition to see who has the most money or the biggest house. And I just think how much easier if would be if each person had their own room and there was no such thing as a house. One less thing to compete against.
I just really enjoyed this book because it gave me a better outlook on life. Our lives do not revolve around whose prettier or who has the most surges, or who is more famous. Because in their world, that's all that matters. They may have cool things that would make life a lot easier, but their lives are so pointless, and I like living a life where I can make decision on my own and not have to worry what other people think about it, or what group I will end up falling into. And that's the way it's supposed to be!