Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Littlie, ugly, pretty, and crumbly mean roughly
the same as “child,” “teenager,” “adult,” and
“elderly person.” Of course, uglies get the
operation and become pretty when they turn
sixteen, which is a little earlier than adulthood
in our world. That’s why at first they’re called
new pretties, and aren’t expected to take things
very seriously yet.

Trivia: “Littlie” is Australian slang for
a little kid, and “crumbly” is British slang for an
older person. In the Italian translation, pretties
were called perfetti, which literally means
“perfects.”