Online Book Club #1

Uglies in (about) 100 words:
What would you give up to be pretty? Your friends? Your family? Yourself? Tally is born into a world where everyone gets an operation to become perfectly pretty on their sixteenth birthday. It seems like that’s all she’s ever wanted. But after her friend Shay runs off to join a rebel group, all of that might be endangered unless Tally becomes a government spy and goes after her. This book has tons of action, danger, and suspense. Westerfeld’s writing sucks you into Tally’s tricky, high tech world from the first page. The final cliffhanger ending will have you running back to the library to get Pretties, the second book in the series.


Now, go and read it if you haven’t already. If you have read it or are reading it, join in the discussion below. Remember to check back each week for a fresh question.

Book Club Question of the week (courtesy of Scott Westerfeld's website: www.scottwesterfeld.com):

At first, did you hope Tally would get the operation? When did you change your mind? (Or did you?)

Book Club Question of the week (#2):
Would you give up your ability to think independently in exchange for being happy, beautiful, perpetually healthy, and rich?

Book Club Question of the week (#3):
To what extent did Tally decide her own fate, and how much did other people decide it for her?

Book Club Question of the Week (#4):
The Rusty civilization collapsed because of its dependence on oil. In what ways is your lifestyle dependent on oil and gasoline? How easily would you survive if it all disappeared one day?

How Online Book Club is going to work

On the 1st, we're going to start FCPL's first online book club. I'll post a review of the title and a question to start discussion. Then everyone who has an answer to the question will post in the comments and we'll all talk back and forth on that question (or any others that come up in the line of discussion) for a week. Each following week for one month I'll post another question about the book for us to discuss. On the seventh or eighth of each month, I'll announce the next month's title. New discussions will start on the first or second of each month. I realize it's way past the seventh this month, but I'm going to pick a title that's a few years old in hopes that lots of folks have already read it.

Without further ado: Next month's book title is Scott Westerfeld's Uglies.

P.S. I think we should come up with a cooler title than "Online Book Club". Any suggestions?