- Publisher: Recorded books
- Publish Date: 2007
- Print Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
- Publish Date: 2006
- Format: Audio Book
- Duration: 11 hours (9 compact disks)
- ISBN-10: 1-4281-3462-X
- ISBN-13: 978-1-4281-3462-1
- Author: Scott Westerfeld
- Read by: Catherine Montbertrand
Specials by Scott Westerfeld is the third of four book in the “Uglies” trilogy. In this third installment, Tally Youngblood has been made into a member of Special Circumstances along with her old associate Shay. Shay now runs The Cutters, a branch of Special Circumstances designed to operate in the wild and hunt down runaways and other Smoke sympathetic people. These Specials no longer have the brain lesions that make them docile, but they have had other surgery to make them compliant to following the orders of Dr. Cable.
Tally enjoys the enhanced physical and mental abilities she’s gained as a member of the Cutters, but misses her relationship with Zane who is still impacted by the brain damage he experienced in the previous book (Pretties). She and Shay decide to pull a huge trick to help Zane escape so he will appear bubbly enough to join Special Circumstances as well. Then, they will hunt down him and the rest of the Smokies and bring him into the fold. Things go both better and worse than they could imagine, bringing the City to the brink of war with another, more Smokey friendly city.
I enjoyed Specials a little more than the last installment (Pretties). I still don’t like that Westerfeld makes self-harm and risky behavior the ‘key’ to clear thinking and overcoming brain control. It seems irresponsible in a book aimed at young people to make this assertion. I suppose it gives him an excuse to pull some more exciting things into the story line. It is an OK story and has some interesting plot devices, even if most of them are really not believable, even in the context of the story. If you don’t think about it very much, it is mildly entertaining. If you do decide to read the series, I highly recommend the audiobook format. You don’t have to work too hard, and if you glaze out for a bit, you probably won’t miss much.
Matt Truxaw’s newest book is Monster, which released on 1/12/2026. This urban fantasy, horror, thriller will keep you turning the pages.
He is also the author of the hard science fiction thrillers: “Plastiphobia/Plastivore” and “Anthrophobia: A Teacher’s Tale”
You can find them all on Amazon in Paperback, Hardback, Kindle and/or free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
When you read any of them, he would really appreciate a review/rating on Amazon or your favorite book seller/book reader site.
More about Matt:
He was born in Orange County California many years ago and he still lives there. He has been reading books for most of those years and writing up book reviews for the last few years. He gets most of his books out of the library so expect a lot of old science fiction classics book reviews and other science related reviews in addition to newer books he comes across.
If you want to be ‘in-the-loop’ on these and other works, you can follow his author’s page on Amazon or his Facebook page.
For more reviews and articles by Matt here on Amazing Stories (Click here).
