Just before their sixteenth birthdays, when they will will be transformed into beauties whose only job is to have a great time, Tally's best friend runs away and Tally must find her and turn her in, or never become pretty at all.

After being captured and surgically transformed into a "special," teenaged Tally Youngblood, now a government agent programmed to protect society from outside threats, is ordered to eliminate the rebel colony New Smoke, Tally's former home. "Special Circumstances": The words have sent chills down Tally's spine since her days as a repellent, rebellious ugly. Back then Specials were a sinister rumor -- frighteningly beautiful, dangerously strong, breathtakingly...

After befriending the Crims, a group of fellow teens who refuse to take anything in society at face value, Shay starts to question the whole concept of being transformed from an ordinary "Ugly" into a paragon of beauty. And as the Crims explore beyond the monitored borders of Uglyville into the forbidden, Shay must choose between the perks of being Pretty and the rewards of being real.