Extras

Extras is the fourth novel in Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series. It takes place after the events in Specials.  I was a bit concerned when I saw that Westerfeld was introducing readers to a new set of characters and leaving Tally, David and Shay behind.  But, it didn't take long for me to get enchanted with the new world.  Extras follows the adventures of Aya Fuse and takes place in Japan.  In Aya's world, people are given a face rank by how popular they are.  Everybody has their own cameras that follow them around and the city system monitors how often they are being talked about. If you're being talked about, your face rank gets higher and you're more famous. In this world, the famous people have everything.  The other people have to do good deeds and behave well in order to earn merits to get things. Aya's face rank is so low that she's just an "extra" in her world.  She longs to be so much more and when she stumbles upon the story of her life, her dreams of being famous come true. The only problem is the people trying to kill her for what she's discovered. 

Extras is just as fun as the other three books in this series.  It is packed with action and has strong underlying themes about what it means to be famous and how much is it worth to be famous.  Is it worth betraying your friends?  Plus, Westerfeld keeps everybody happy with appearings from our old favorites Tally and the other Cutters. Westerfeld also gives a nice twist on the name of the book at the end. I highly recommend this series.  Who knows, maybe Westerfield will keep the Uglies series going.