"You've sen old wallscreen movies, right?"

"Of course. That was how Rusties got famous."

"Yeah, but here's a weird thing: Rusty software wasn't smart enough to make backgrounds, so they had to build everything in the movie. They had whole fake cities for the actors to walk around in."

"Fake cities? [...] Wow, talk about waste."

"And to fill these fake cities, they hired hundreds of real people to walk around. But they weren't in the story at all. Just in the background. And they were called extras.

"[...] Isn't that how you feel sometimes [...] Like there's a big story going on, and you're stuck in the background?"

"Everyone feels that way sometimes, I guess."

"And you'd do anything to make yourself feel bigger, wouldn't you?"

I was so excited to get this book that I sped all the way from the college to Barnes and Noble where I bought the book, then sped home, reading when I came upon stop lights. Not the safest thing to do, but....

Yay....Fausto was in this book. I love Fausto. He is like ♥ ... v. face-making (because face rank is the new pretty...) There was also a bit of Tally/David love, but it wasn't over-the-top, in-your-face, oh-gawd-plz-gag-me fluff. There was conflict, but it was underscored. There was a sweet sentiment, but it was well-done.

There was also some pretty schway hover-gear and some really intense action scenes. Aya grew, but not in a way that was unbelievable. It was a very subtle change, very delicately done. You could see the way her upbringing really affected her in how she dealt with the other characters. She was an amazing protagonist, much better than Tally, who got on my nerves somewhere in the middle of Pretties. She was easy to relate to, but different enough from myself that I was able to keep my head and see how her environment had affected her personality--in both positive and negative ways.

"If it's a secret, you'd better not tell me. I'm not very good at keeping secrets."

"Right, because of your..." She resisted the urge to point at his head. It was strange--bubbleheads were the only brain surgers Aya had ever known, and Frizz didn't seem like a bubblehead at all. "But what does honesty have to do with keeping secrets?"

"Radical Honesty gets rid of all deception." Frizz recited, like he'd explained this a million times before. "I can't lie, truth-slant, or pretend not to know something. You can't even invite me to surprise parties, or I'll give it all away."

A laugh bubbled up in Aya. "But doesn't that make everything less...surprising?"

"You'd be surprised how often it makes things more surprising."

"Huh." She stared at the battle, wondering how many things she kept secret every day. "You can't hide yourself at all. That must be scary-making."

He turned to her. "Scary-making for me? Or everyone else?"

Surprisingly, Tally didn't piss me off as much in this book as she had in the last. She was less annoying; I found it easier to get into her head and see her way of thinking and justifying it. It was a nice change. I hadn't really liked her since Uglies way back when.

The Sly Girls were thrilling. I really loved their love of obscurity. They didn't hate fame, they just saw it as pointless. They sought out their own kind of thrills and stayed ahead of the curve (literally!). The mag-lev scenes with them were stunning. They were described as Plain Janes, barely discernible from one another, and yet they each had their own individuality and possessed it so powerfully it was addicting and very bubbly.

There was just so much I loved about this book. Yeah, there was stuff I didn't like, but it was overshadowed by the stuff I did. This was a great addition to an already amazing series. It was richly written, but not overly decadent. It carefully balanced witty humor with poetic insights. This book ranks as number one in my feed.

"It is hard at first, I know. But I learned from Young Blood that the world has no edge, no end. you must learn to see beyond the little men."

< /spoilers >


Uhhhh.....I'm so tired right now. Work was fairly easy....a bit monotonous, but easy. I had two tests--one in Precalc and one in History. I misjudged the amount of time I would need and thought the class was ten minutes longer than it was, so I did feel a bit pressed for time, but I still fell confident in my work and finished twenty minutes early. History was easy, I was the third person done....I was out almost an hour early. Also, just f.y.i. for the mind-lacking ones out there: England has a fourth of July. Lol XD That was on my test. :D

Tomorrow we are supposedly finishing off Pan's Labyrinth in film class tomorrow, but we're about a week behind and it makes me really angry that classes have been canceled at the last minute because I have two and a half hours between my first and second class and if my second class is going to be canceled, I'm going to want to go home at noon rather than waiting around.

Also, it is National Squirrel Awareness Week.




Also, "And Tally Youngblood--architect of the mind-rain, the most famous person in the world--was nothing but a truth-slanting Slime Queen."