Thank you Scott Westerfeld for contributing to the fabulous person I am today. I, like the main character in the books, had the power to think my way out of any bad situation in my life. My brain had not been surgically damaged by the government to require that sort of action. His other novels include the New York Times bestseller Afterworlds, the worldwide bestselling Uglies series, The Last Days, Peeps, So Yesterday, and the Midnighters trilogy. I could understand that it was sad that the only way they could control their brains was to cut themselves and at no point did I equate my situation to theirs and think that cutting myself would be beneficial. Scott Westerfeld is the author of the Leviathan series, the first book of which was the winner of the 2010 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Fiction. I've read some reviews that suggest that underage drinking and, in the later books, 'cutting' seemed like disturbing themes for young readers but as someone who has read through this series dozens of times as a teen, I found them portrayed as negatives. This series was important in my formative years and I hope they can continue to inspire bright young minds for many years to come. I learned to love myself and ignore the ideals of physical beauty that others tried to impose on me. Without this series, I would not be the happy, comfortable free-thinker that I am today. She fights the power and she makes personal sacrifice, all things that we have to learn to do eventually. I found the romantic portions of the series to be appropriate, very different to the awful themes I read in the Twilight series at the same age. She still craves male attention, like we all do from a very young age, but she doesn't require their help to get anything done. Kickass female lead who takes care of herself and takes on the issues of the world, not needing male counterparts to help her. I read this series religiously from when I was 11 and it taught me some very valuable lessons that I might not have learned otherwise. This series is absolutely fabulous! Bright young minds need to learn about vanity, overuse of technology and not giving in to societal expectations in their formative years.

Uglies series order