The Extra One

Extras by Scott Westerfeld
This is the last book in the Uglies series, although in someways it reads more as a companion book than the continuation of the same story. The book does take place in the same world and deals with the aftermath of the events of Specials. But the biggest difference is that it isn't told by Tally. She does still make an appearance about halfway through the book, but here the star is Aya Fuse, a 15-year-old living in what used to be called Japan.

There's a few things I really enjoyed about this book. First it was nice to see this world from a different point of view. I really liked Aya, and while she has her similarities to Tally at the start of the series, she is such a different person. Second, it was really interesting seeing Tally from someone else's point of view. While we know all the changes Tally's gone through over the corse of the novels, as a reader part of me still thinks of her as a 15-year-old ugly. Whereas Aya's view of her is far more dangerous than I would picture her, but I do think it fits the character we left at the end of Specials.

It's also interesting to hear how society has changed based on the events from the earlier books. Instead of a world where you can have whatever you want whenever you want it, they had to come up with some kind of currency. Their currency is based on reputation, so the more people who know you the more things you can have. Not too different from our society today, and it makes sense considering the world this society came from. Although it does mention several times, this was the choice of one city, and others changed differently. Not sure if there will be any more ugly books, especially considering Specials was written as the end initially, but if there are seeing other cities' way of changing would be an interesting way to go.

I definitely enjoyed this, and think it might be my favorite of the whole series. Although as I said before, I think it might have been better classified as a companion book instead the next uglies novel.

4.5/5