Review by
Caroline
Extras Review
In the beginning, I missed Tally terribly, but as I flipped pages and journeyed deeper and deeper into the story, I began to appreciate the different voice, the voice of Aya. What I noticed first was the fact that Tally and Aya are ridiculously similar, from hopping the border to Prettyville to doing whatever it takes to get their way. So, in a certain sense, we didn’t lose Tally at all, because aspects of her also reside in Aya. And Tally Youngblood’s influence, as the single most popular person in the world with a whopping and impressive “face rank” of one, is definitely felt as Aya’s story continues.
Extras was, as usual, fast-paced. It was funny. Interesting. Enlightening. Scott Westerfeld is always good at addressing little trends of our society and blowing them up and up until they become exaggerated reflections of our stupid tendencies. Or maybe not so exaggerated after all. Plus, pretty gets a different definition. Albeit, it isn’t completely different, but many people take on new guises-- animals, manga, big noses, etc. Hurray for hard-core plastic surgery, apparently. Actually, I guess that didn’t really change at all. Those darn people were always obsessed with surgery.
Once again, though, the ending left me feeling incomplete. Granted, I always feel incomplete at the end of a book-- I always want more. The book is worth the few hours it will take to read, and I do recommend it. I wouldn’t say it is the best of the series, but it is quite satisfying.
