The book Specials by Scott Westerfeld is the third book in a series of four. IRJE #1 was about the second book, and now I have moved onto reading the third book. I have just started reading this book and haven’t even finished the first chapter but so far, the key event that I clued into was that Tally is now a Special, or Special Circumstance. Specials are a modified ‘superhuman’ version of a pretty who can resist the effects of the lesions. Most Pretties who were very tricky in their ugly life became specials. Tally is feeling better, and her memories are sharp and can be remembered now. Tally isn’t a regular special though, she is part of a group of 16 with her best friend Shay, called the Cutters. They are separated from the rest of the specials and prefer to do missions alone. The Cutters went to an uglies party to try and find a Smokie (city Uglies who escaped the operation). This is when I found this paragraph.
The crowd parted easily, everyone sliding out of her way. However zitty and uneven their faces, the uglies’ eyes were sharp, full of nervous stabs of awareness. They were smart enough to sense that the three Cutters were different. No one stared for too long at Tally or realized what she was behind her smart-plastic mask, but bodies moved aside at her lightest touch, shivers playing across their shoulders as she passed, as if the uglies sensed something dangerous in the air.
It was easy seeing the thoughts ripple across their faces. Tally could watch the jealousies and hatreds, rivalry and attraction, all of it written on their expressions and in the way they moved. Now that she was a special, everything was laid out clearly, like looking down on a forest path from above. (p. 9)
This quotation shows that now Tally is a Special, she can think much clearer than ever before. She seems to enjoy being part of the Special Circumstances now, even though she didn’t want to become one in the first place. It probably helps that Shay is there as well and that they formed their own tight group of 16 called the Cutters. When I read this section, it seems to me that Tally, as well as the other Specials, have very keen and sharp senses now. They are starting to see their life around them in a different way. Before when they were Pretties, they found it hard to remember and think for themselves because they couldn’t. The lesions that the operation puts in their brains stopped them from doing what makes you human. But when Tally managed to brake away from that state of mind and think for herself all by herself, the Special Circumstances noticed and knew that Tally should become one of them. Because no one should be able to resist the effects of the lesions, which made Tally special.