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Chapters 11–15

Summary: Chapter 11: Last Trick

It is now six days until Tally’s operation. Tally thinks about how bored she is, yet sad to leave her former life. She convinces herself that she’s better off without Shay. Just then, Shay pops into her window. Tally is so overjoyed she finds Shay’s face pretty for a moment. Shays asks her to run away with her to where David lives, a place called the Smoke. Shay says she once tried to go with some friends, but she chickened out. When Tally accused her of being afraid of growing up, Shay decided it was time. Tally declines, saying it’s wrong to live in nature like an animal. Shay leaves Tally coded instructions in case she changes her mind and makes Tally promise to keep her secret. Tally promises, using her scarred hand. 

Summary: Chapter 12: Operation

It's the day of Tally’s operation. A Middle Pretty, a middle-aged Pretty engineered to look mature, comes to pick her up and bring her to the hospital, which is just over the river at the edge of Pretty Town. Tally tries to impress him by saying how lightly she packed. Tally thinks about how strange it is that no one is joining her—not her mother or father or any friends. She regrets not being able to convince Shay to stay, and worries about Shay’s survival. While waiting in a room for her operation, a man with sharp features, similar to those of a bird of prey, comes in. He tells Tally there’s been a problem with her operation and she needs to come with him. 

Summary: Chapter 13: Special Circumstances

Tally is taken to Special Circumstances, a form of secret police. Tally notices that the entire building is full of people with the same strange, sharp, hawkish-like beauty. These Pretties feel more terrifying than welcoming. She is taken to meet a woman named Dr. Cable. Dr. Cable explains that they’ve been following runaways like Shay and want to know where they are going. She says there are outsiders beyond the city who are a threat. Tally realizes immediately that Special Circumstances must be referring to David and the Smoke. Dr. Cable presses Tally to reveal their whereabouts, but Tally refuses, sensing Dr. Cable’s malice, and remembering her promise to Shay. Dr. Cable gives Tally an ultimatum: Tell them where Shay is or she’ll be an Ugly for life. 

Summary: Chapter 14: Ugly for Life

Tally returns to the dorms. Her parents, Sol and Ellie, come to visit. Tally is surprised to find out that her parents know about Special Circumstances, and furthermore, that they think she should comply with their requests. They condemn Shay’s influence, and tell Tally she must become a Pretty and get on with her life. Tally thinks her father’s reaction is strange. She realizes that he must have no idea what life is like outside the city as she does now. She finds him naïve for having faith in people like Dr. Cable. Tally says she wants to come home, but her parents say it’s better to stay in the dorms. Tally feels completely alienated. Shunned by her family and without surgery, she’ll now be an outcast in the dorms.

Summary: Chapter 15: Peris

For four days, Tally remains in the dorms, contemplating her future. The other kids are confused about why she’s still there, and they know something has gone wrong with Tally’s operation. Tally goes hoverboarding to relieve stress. She receives a visit from Peris. Peris tells her that rumors are spreading that Tally is in trouble and Special Circumstances is involved, and the Pretties are intrigued. Peris wants her to hurry up and get her operation so they can become popular together in Pretty Town. He reminds her that she made a promise to him before she made a promise to Shay. Tally, overwhelmed by Peris’s beauty and swayed by his words, decides to betray Shay. She calls Dr. Cable.

Analysis: Chapters 11–15

When Tally declines Shay’s offer to escape to where David lives, stark differences between the girls’ characters are drawn. Even though Tally has enjoyed her time exploring the wilderness with Shay, she believes that living in nature like an animal is simply wrong. Leading an uncivilized life is not ideal. She believes in the goals of her society and is comfortable operating within its boundaries. Tally believes that no one can escape what has been scientifically determined to be considered biologically beautiful. In this way, she implicitly accepts the conformity that this scientific view suggests. One cannot escape this beauty ideal, equated with fact, simply by thinking it isn’t so or by escaping to nature.

Shay, in contrast, thinks one can only be free in nature, outside of society’s rule. Shay wants to think for herself and live by her own rules. Even though the girls are so different in their worldviews, they respect each other’s decisions. Shay doesn’t argue with Tally; she accepts her decision not to escape with her, and even leaves her coded instructions if she changes her mind. Tally later regrets not trying to convince Shay to stay, because she truly loves her friend and believes she’s unsafe out in the wild. The girls demonstrate that no matter how different one’s views are from another’s, two people can still maintain a bond of trust and concern.

When Tally is picked up by the Middle Pretty, she falls right in line with what the Middle Pretties’ features are designed to do—inspire her to be mature. She tries to impress him by saying she’s packed light, suggesting she doesn’t need material things. This same scenario is echoed earlier when Tally feels compelled to give up her location to the safety warden hunting for her in the bushes in Pretty Town after her bungee jump. The beauty ideal in Tally’s society seems to be taken one step further as people are engineered to look a certain way with a goal in mind: compliance. This suggests how science can be used as a tool to engineer for ulterior, darker motives involving control, a warning that appears in many dystopian novels such as Uglies.

Since Tally hasn’t been exposed to many Pretties since they never seem to return to Uglyville after they undergo surgery, Tally is shocked and unsettled when she meets her first Special Pretty at the Special Circumstances compound. This type of beauty is aesthetically undeniable, but it’s also terrifying. She compares their beauty to one of a predator’s. Tally learns that even within this one scientifically determined narrow framework of aesthetically pleasing features there is variance, suggesting nature can never really be reduced to simple principles in reality. She once again compares the sunset to cat vomit, indicating that her state of mind is once again soured. Tally’s perceptions are changing with her experiences of life which are showing her that life is more complicated than she was taught.

This fact is further underscored by her parents’ reaction to Tally’s troubles. They want Tally to stop her rebellious behavior and comply with Special Circumstances. Tally realizes her father has likely never seen much of the world outside the city’s limits. For the first time, she finds her parents naïve and inexperienced. Her parents have nothing to offer her at this point since she’s seen more than they have and has met Special Circumstances officials face to face. Peris as well can’t help—his entreating her to comply is simply out of selfish concern. He wants her to stay out of trouble so she can help him be popular in Pretty Town, which puts a high social premium on rabble-rousers. Tally is now truly alone with no guidance. She must decide to betray Shay or stay ugly forever on her own, since she is the only one who truly knows the stakes involved.

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