Scott Westerfeld - Pretties (2005)

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With everything so perfect, reality seemed somehow fragile, as if the slightest interruption could imperil her pretty future... all of it felt as tenuous as a soap bubble, shivering and empty.

Scott Westerfeld
So, there was this beautiful princess. She was locked in a high tower (...) She was stuck up there (...) So the only thing was to jump.

Scott Westerfeld
And the worst thing was, there were no mirrors out there in the wild, so the princess was left wondering whether she in fact was still beautiful... or if the fall had changed the story completely.

Scott Westerfeld
She couldn't disappoint the whole village. There were no wallscreens here, no newsfeeds or satellites bands, and touring soccer teams were no doubt few and far between. (...), that made stories a valuable commodity, and it probably wasn't very often that a stranger dropped in from the sky.

Scott Westerfeld
Everyone in the world was programmed by the place they were born, hemmed in by their beliefs, but you had to at least try to grow your own brain.

Scott Westerfeld
Maybe she still was a pretty-head, making up irrational stories about the empty forest. The longer she stayed alone out here, the more Tally understood why the Rusties and their predecessors had believed in invisible beings, praying to placate spirits as they trashed the natural world around them.

Scott Westerfeld
Your father always suspected that being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. They want to be vapid and lazy and vain—Maddy glanced at Tally—and selfish. It only takes a twist to lock in that part of their personalities. He always thought that some people could think their way out of it.

Scott Westerfeld
Tally, do you ever suffer from sudden flashes of anger or euphoria, countersocial impulses, or feelings of superiority?

Scott Westerfeld
And over all those sleepy weeks, the dream always ended the same way, with the dragon coming for the princess saying the same words every time.... "Face it, Tally-wa, you're Special.

Scott Westerfeld
Left alone, human beings are a plague. They multiply relentlessly, consuming every resource, destroying everything they touch.

Scott Westerfeld
But it's always taking a risk, when you... kiss someone new.

Scott Westerfeld
He turned to face her again, his late-pretty composure crumbling. "But you're..." "Pretty? Think again." She smiled. "I'm Tally Youngbood. My mind is very ugly. And I'm taking your car.

Scott Westerfeld
At least one thing was consistent about her life: It just kept on getting more complicated.

Scott Westerfeld
Nature was tough, it could be dangerous, but unlike Dr. Cable or shay, or peris-unlike people in general-it made sense. The problems it threw at you could be solved rationally.

Scott Westerfeld
And it was pretty clear that no prince was showing up, or at least that he was really late.

Scott Westerfeld
Sometimes it felt like her life was a series of falls from ever-greater heights.

Scott Westerfeld
It's not the way Zane looks, David," she said, her voice trembling with anger. "It's because he makes me bubbly, and because we took a lot of risks together. It could just as easily be me lying there, and he would stay with me if it was." "It's just programming!" "No. It's because I love him.

Scott Westerfeld
There was a species of middle pretty who smiled at everything: happy smile, disappointed smile, you're-in-trouble smile.

Scott Westerfeld