UGLIES by Scott Westerfeld

Being inspired, probably, by the increased number of plastic surgeries, especially for the very young people, Scott Westerfeld wrote the trilogy UGLIES.

The author imagines the future world, divided into UGLIES and PRETTIES.
“… maybe that was why they separated uglies from pretties. It must be horrible to see an ugly face when you’re surrounded by such beautiful people all the time.”

At 16 years old, any person can be transformed from Ugly to Pretty, by having a deep aesthetic surgery: “the bones ground down to the right shape, the nose cartilage and cheekbones stripped out and replaced with programmable plastic, skin sanded off.”

“They said it didn’t hurt, except the new skin, which felt like a killer sunburn for a couple of weeks.
Two weeks of killer sunburn is worth a lifetime of being gorgeous.”

The reason for this extreme method is coming from the past of humanity, i.e., our current times:

“Everyone judged everyone based on their appearance. People who were taller got better jobs, and people even voted for some politicians just because they weren’t quite as ugly as everyone else.”

“So what if people look more alike now? It’s the only way to make people equal.”

There is another explanation, hidden from the people’s knowledge: the government is creating its obedient citizens. While the people are in the operation room, the surgeons are modifying their brains so they will be transformed into silly Pretty people!!!
It seems that even though in the future the technology is very well advanced, the people’s propensity to evil is still there.

“Being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. They want to be vapid and lazy and vain.”

“We are under the control because of the operation. Left alone human beings are a plague. They multiply relentlessly, consuming every resource, destroying everything they touch.”

Kindle, 2013