Book Review: Extras

Extras
Uglies #4
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Audiobook: 11 hours and 36 min.
Reading Level: YA
Published: March 17th 2008
Review Source: Library
Available: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Borders

Summary: (from goodreads) The world has become a different place since Tally Youngblood upset the Uglies, Pretties, Specials applecart. What it's like? Well, visualize an all-day, everyday version of American Idol, where every body's a contestant and there are cameras everywhere. In this constant competition, teenager Aya Fuse ranks as a nobody; 451,369 to be exact. Of course, such obscurity has its small rewards, all of which have now become endangered by her friendship with the Sly Girls. Another futuristic thriller by Uglies trilogy author Scott Westerfeld.

This story was a continuation of the Uglies series, but focused on a new set of characters. I listened to the audiobook in my car on my commute to/from work. It felt like it was taking forever to get through the story, so I ended up skipping a few of the CDs because I wanted to see how it ended. Aya Fuse wanted to become famous, sort of like how Tally Youngblood wanted to become a Pretty in the first part of the series. Aya and her brother Hiro and friend Ren are called "kickers" and they try to get the scoop on stories so they can get a higher "face rank", in other words be famous.

Tally becomes friends with an elusive group called the Sly Girls and comes across a secret that turns out to be a danger to the world as humanity knows it. She kicks the story and starts to become famous...and that's where I started to get bored with the story and decided to fast forward a bit.

When I came back to the story, Tally and David, Fausto and Andrew and some of the characters from the first 3 books in the series were a part of the storyline. I enjoyed how Scott incorporated them into this book and continued the storyline. I also liked how Scott wove technology and futuristic terms and ideas into the entire series.