Name: Extras
Rating: 3.485507246376812 (207 reviews)
ISBN: 9781847389237

Scott Westerfeld

At the end of Specials, the conclusion to the Uglies trilogy, things in Tally's futuristic world had stabilised. The walls between the social classes - the uglies, pretties and specials - had been torn down. So Tally took off to live on her own in the wild. Fast forward... Tally discovers another brand new world. In Extras, it's all about who you know, and how much you have. It's just like LA. Only Paris and Nicole are way dead...

Extras

After rebel Tally Youngblood brings down the uglies/pretties/specials regime, fame, instead of beauty, becomes the new world order, and fifteen-year-old Aya Fuse embarks on a dangerous plan to boost her popularity ranking.

I DNF’d this book several years ago when I originally started the Uglies series. When I re-read the uglies series this year I told myself I was going to get through Extras this time. 

Let me start by saying I LOVE Uglies, Pretties, Specials. Extras just doesn’t do it for me. I really can’t put a finger on why exactly, but it took me several months to make it through this 500 page book. The last 100 pages are really great and tie everything in together nicely, but the first like 300-ish are just booorrring in my opinion. Definitely would recommend if you love the Uglies series, but just be prepared it isn’t as good as the other 3. 

Hailey Carr

I DNF’d this book several years ago when I originally started the Uglies series. When I re-read the uglies series this year I told myself I was going to get through Extras this time. 

Let me start by saying I LOVE Uglies, Pretties, Specials. Extras just doesn’t do it for me. I really can’t put a finger on why exactly, but it took me several months to make it through this 500 page book. The last 100 pages are really great and tie everything in together nicely, but the first like 300-ish are just booorrring in my opinion. Definitely would recommend if you love the Uglies series, but just be prepared it isn’t as good as the other 3. 

Kathy Jedrzejczyk

Some semi spoilers:
It was alright, but I don't get why all the girls in these books are so dumb. They never get anything. And Aya had to go to her brother and his friend to figure out some answers. She wasn't able to do it on her own... Both Aya and Tally make dumb mistakes all the time. WTF?

Jacalyn Boggs

This series gets better and better. This addendum to the trilogy puts the reader a few years after the ending of Specials as well as the other side of the globe.

Life has changed across the planet in the few short years in ways unexpected when Tally first saught to end the corruption of the Pretty Regime.

Meet new character, Aya, who has yet to get her own Pretty surgery. She strives to improve her facerank, her social status even as an Ugly. How can she set herself apart from the rest of the world? When she first stumbles upon The Sly Girls, she thought she had the key but things quickly change as she realizes they are not the story at all.

So what is the story? Can she uncover what is happening? How will it change life as she knows it? 

There are still Special Circumstances keeping Tally Youngblood busy in her brave new world.

These days it's all about the fame. As if life isn't hard enough when you're fifteen, Aya Fuse's face rank of 451,369 is so low, she's a total nobody. An Extra. But when she meets a clique of girls who pull crazy, dangerous tricks in secret, Aya sees a way to get her popularity rating to soar… Aya is sure she's destined for a life in the spotlight, and if she can just 'kick' the story to show everyone how intensely cool the Sly Girls are, then the spotlight will be on her. But is Aya really prepared to be propelled out of Extra-land and into a world of instant fame, celebrity… and extreme danger?

annie

Took me awhile to get into it but it all came together in the end 🫶 3.5 stars

Finally after a long time I read the last book of the series. I really enjoyed it! 

FEVRONIA AVERI

Eleanor Luhar

An unexpected new protagonist is introduced in this novel, as opposed to the original Tally Youngblood. This is set around three years after the previous book where Tally becomes a Special. It is also based in a futuristic area supposedly in Japan - I assume, as they talk in Japanese.

"They" is mainly Aya, a fifteen-year-old girl who is desperate to become famous. Like her older brother Hiro, Aya kicks all the coolest things, using footage from her personal hovercam to keep her feed updated. She gets mixed up with the Sly Girls when trying to film their tricks, which results in an amazing discovery.

This is set after the "mind-rain" when Tally brought attention to the bubbleheadedness that cities bestowed upon their citizens. Since then, people have been going crazy - Tech Heads, Surge Monkeys, even NeoFoodies. In Aya's home city, people can earn merits by completing good deeds or, more popularly, become a famous face. The city has learned to pick up when people mention your name, and if it got mentioned enough, you could become one of the Thousand Faces. However, most people - such as Aya - are stuck being Extras.

During the process of unravelling the mysteries of the "inhumans" that she sees, Aya drags Frizz, Hiro, Ren and even the Cutters into her world. They discover the plan of a different group of Extras - surged-up people who are preparing to make an orbital habitat for humankind.

I like Aya as a character, though her immature desperation for fame is somewhat annoying. Frizz and Hiro, although only secondary characters, are both very important in their own ways and also very interesting characters. Tally, however, seems surprisingly brutal and vicious in this novel.

Westerfeld has constantly used the appropriate (albeit fictional) slang throughout the book, again keeping you emerged in their world. I'm not sure about the second group of Extras having the same name as the first, though; I feel like Westerfeld just couldn't be bothered to think of anything else. The title of the book, to me, should be based on the alien-like beings who cause so much confusion.

This was a very interesting addition to the series, rather different to the previous books. It maybe wasn't crucial but wasn't the worst fourth-in-series novel I've read. I think 3.5 stars is fair for this.

Paige Green

Disclaimer: I bought this book. Support your authors!



Book Series: Uglies Book 4



Rating: 4/5



Publication Date: October 2, 2007



Genre: YA Dystopian



Recommended Age: 14+ (violence, some gore, fighting the government, obsession with face ranks, modifications to your body)



Publisher: Simon Pulse



Pages: 417



Amazon Link



Synopsis: A few years after rebel Tally Youngblood takes down the Specials regime, a cultural renaissance sweeps the world. “Tech-heads” flaunt their latest gadgets, “kickers” spread gossip and trends, and “surge monkeys” are hooked on extreme plastic surgery. Popularity rules, and everyone craves fame.

Fifteen-year-old Aya Fuse is no exception. But Aya’s face rank is so low, she’s a total nobody. An extra. Her only chance at stardom is to kick a wild and unexpected story.

Then she stumbles upon a big secret. Aya knows she is on the cusp of celebrity. But the information she is about to disclose will change both her fate…and that of the brave new world



Review: I loved the diversion from the main series of Tally being the center character, I loved Aya and I felt that she was an interesting and well developed character. I also loved seeing how different cultures were after the mind-rain. I also loved the mechanics of this world and I definitely got Black Mirror vibes.



However, I do feel like the book suffered from not having such developed characters as the first books. Hiro, Ren, and Frizz all felt very much like background characters and I felt that Tally, Shay, David, and Fausto felt like fanfic versions of themselves. Tally didn’t have the same energy in my opinion.



Verdict: I still love this series.

(#1) Uglies ★★★☆☆
(#2) Pretties ★★★☆☆
(#3) Specials ★★☆☆☆
(#4) Extras ★★☆☆☆ (2.5)

I just have no clue how I feel about this series anymore. And now Westerfeld is writing more books?! 



  
    "You Sly Girls don't cry when you watch the big-face parties on the feeds, just because you weren't invited. You don't stay friends with people you hate, just to bump your face rank. And even though nobody knows what you're doing out here, you don't feel invisible at all. Do you?"
  



I enjoyed this book more than 
  Specials
 but my thoughts haven't changed much since reading this book the first time. This book is just too far from the rest of the books for me to enjoy. I went in picking up a book that was supposed to be part of the final installment of the series and instead it's really just a spin-off. 

I really appreciate the idea of expanding the world a little more in each book, but with a whole new crew of characters AND a new type of society just throws this book off a little too much. 



  
    "I know what it’s like to be manipulated, Aya-la. And I know what it’s like to be in danger. While your city was building you mansions to live in, my friends and I have been protecting this planet. We’ve spilled more blood than you have flowing in your veins. So don’t try to make me feel guilty!"
  



Yes, the original characters do eventually tie back into the story, but I already felt off kilter because of the story line so it didn't save the book for me. 

Honestly, I am expecting that the new books will be more like this one - spin off stories that expand the world but only barely tie in with the original story line that we enjoyed. We can only wait and see though.



More reviews | Twitter | Pinterest | One must always be careful of books and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us. (C. Clare)

Chelsea Breher

Now this is how you do a spinoff from an original series, this novel kept the soul of the original stories but told a new side of the story. Another offshoot from the world of the pretties. It focuses on Aya and the secrets she uncovers alongside her friends that may the world forever

Jessica Smith

This book reads like bad fanfiction. It's just terrible. It's not even fun to read, which the previous books in this series all were, even if the plots started to get holes in them and there was often too much camping in the woods. This was just miserable.

The problems started with the protagonist, fifteen-year-old Aya. This is the same age that Tally was at the start of Uglies, but Aya is not Tally, and consistently behaves like she's much younger. She is completely obsessed with achieving fame, but she doesn't seem to have any friends at all – just a small flying robot, Moggle. She does have a brother (Hiro), who seems to find her a nuisance, and her brother also has a friend (Rem, I think) who she seems to treat as a friend of her own, even though at one point in the novel he makes her swim to the bottom of a deep lake to collect the robot Moggle, instead of like, using a net or something. Oh also, early in the book she meets a reasonably famous guy (Frizz) at a party who develops a crush on her, even though he's so committed to telling the truth that he got brain surgery to make him incapable of telling lies and she lies all the time.

And you see, this lying is related to why she seems to have no friends – she is so desperate to achieve fame that when she does become part of a particular clique, it's only so she can expose their secret (illegal) thrill-seeking and somehow achieve fame that way. Which, as a plan, does not even make sense. But nonetheless, Aya seems to regard other people as mere tools to be used in the pursuit of fame, being so astoundingly self-absorbed that she is really, really unlikeable.

Also, she doesn't seem to have any parents or anything. In general, she seems very ungrounded – which again, is a huge contrast to when we were introduced to Tally in Uglies, who we knew to have parents (hell, her parents even appeared in one scene), and also friends (Peris, although he'd already been prettified). Aya has none of this background; she could almost be a robot with false memories who hadn't existed until just when the novel began. It probably would have been more interesting if that was the case.

Anyway, if Aya is unrelatable and unlikeable, so too is everyone else. Hiro just seems kind of unpleasant early in the book, Rem has the incident with the lake, and Frizz is just a walking plot device. When characters from the previous books arrive – Tally, Shay and co. – not only are they really dislikeable but they're not even in character. In the intervening time since Pretties (which, by the way, is only THREE YEARS – the entire social structure this book describes was established and stabilised in THREE YEARS, what?!), Tally has somehow gone from how she was then to a gruff and celibate type who thinks nothing about getting random teenagers kidnapped by the people she thinks are the bad guys. Just... callous.

The main plot, honestly, is pretty boring (although probably my contempt for most of the characters helped to shape my opinion), and an economy based on reputation doesn't even really make sense, although I'd be willing to forgive it that if it had done anything interesting with the concept.

There was some interesting stuff around social media gone too far (I guess) – people in Aya's city seem to have Facebook (although it isn't called Facebook) installed directly into their eye sockets, so at any moment they can look up "their" feeds, and the feeds of others, and have these things projected directly onto their eyes. Kind of like Google Glass, but weirder. So that was interesting conceptually, but it added a whole extra level onto the narration – I think Westerfeld wrote more about what Aya saw on her feed than what she saw in the actual physical world – and it meant this book had a very different feel to the three that came before it. Honestly, I think it would've been better if he'd just written a standalone novel, with better characters.

So in the end... I came away from this very disappointed. I felt like this book sullied my memory of the other ones, and particularly of the character of Tally. Uglies wasn't a perfect book, but it was interesting and I really liked it on the reread. The other books may have let it down a little, but this one did in a big way. I wish I hadn't read it. Man.

Extras

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