The first two books in Scott Westerfeld’s distopian look at a future where people are all surgically enhanced to reach the ‘biological’ ideal of beauty, in order to reduce the tensions that come with a society where not everyone reaches these ideals. They’re young adult novels and have a really interesting approach to a lot of the issues of image and fitting in and, well, ecology and society and a bit of everything really. I liked the first a great deal more than the second, mostly because the process of becoming pretty makes for slightly irritating characters – and I’m looking forward to getting the third, Specials, from the library this week.