Where we last left Tally, she bravely sacrificed her mind to become pretty, knowing at the opportune time, David and the others would give her the potential cure so they can see if it will really work and spread their message across PrettyTown.

So with that context out of the waay, it was interesting to see PrettyTown from a brainwashed Tally’s eyes compared to her views of the world post-cure. Yes, she still had some bits of her memory but she felt removed from it and just floated along in a permenant tipsy state (literally and metaphorically).

But as her memories surge, and the cure, she starts to actively fight the pretty-brain and recruits others to join her. This feeling is referred to as “bubbly” aka feeling the rush that comes from thinking and making choices and just not being on perma-drugs.

It’s a bit of an eclectic group as she initially gains followers (the Crims) because they think she’s a thrill seeking badass rather than they believe the society is doing them wrong. But once they start feeling “bubbly,” they start to believe that there is more out there than what the Specials and the rest of Society led them to feel.

But one of those new friends, Zane connects with Tally on a deeper level. Even before getting the cure, he had always been more serious and had guessed that Tally was hiding secrets and memories related to rebelling. A feeling he understood in his own past with Dr. Cable.

Oh yeah, it’s a love triangle. Well, sort of. Tally doesn’t really remember David so you can’t blame her for falling for Zane. In fact, I like him better since we are given more page time with them connecting and sharing almost everything about each other. And it helps that Tally isn’t hiding a huge betrayal from him.

The same can’t be said for Shay and Tally’s friendship. Shay is still firmly brainwashed by the lesions and when she does start feeling bubbly, her anger at Tally explodes and she strikes out on her own to find her own cure. There’s more that goes into spoiler territory but I should have suspected more trouble to come from her.

As for Tally, I feel like I connected ore with her in this book as you get more of a sense of how she wants to make up for her previous actions and how much she truly belives in the cause. Even though there are certain events (showing even more insidiously how the Specials operate) that led her to believe that the Specials do have a point that the lesions/prettybrains keep the worst of humanity from repeating its violent cycle, she also stands firm that people should have the ability to choose happiness instead of being forced into a uniformed mold of happiness and prettiness.

One more note on the love triangle, I appreciated that Westerfeld didn’t have Zane and David hate each other immediatey because they both had bigger things going on. Second, I think Westerfeld did something very interesting in emphasizing that time and togetherness has as much of a factor in love as prettiness, subverting the trope of the first love (David) being chosen. It also allows Westerfeld to fold in his themes of the importance of beauty in society and add in some conflict as rejected David lashes out at Tally that she’s choosing Zane for his prettiness, and that she’s still prettyminded as the rest of them despite the cure because it’s inherant, some are naturally selfish, vain and vapid.

We know it’s not true, but considering the cliffhanger, we’ll see if Tally will be able to retain her independence and break away from the long arm of the Special Operatives.

4 stars.