still more joint pain...

[amredthelector]

Another part of the 100 drawing meme. No. 3 - Light. ...What does a white winged ferret, drawn in white pencil and silver marker on black paper have to do with light? Something, I'm sure.

My shoulder is not doing good. I can't lift it up past a certain point, move it back, move it forward, or pick stuff up without feeling INTENSE pain. Using a mouse is hell, but fortunately for me, I have a wireless track ball mouse which makes my life a lot easier. Unfortunately, I have my computer, lit, French, and math classes today, which are my most-writing-intensive. I am not looking forward to school today.

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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (as well as the sequels, Pretties and Specials)

Normally, I wouldn't read these. I'm not a fan of 'young adult' books. They are geared towards my age group, but I usually find them dry. I'm a part of a small book club at my school, though, and they voted to read Uglies.

The book is about post-apocalypse earth, where the few remaining humans have created a utopian society where, at the age of 16, every person undertakes intense plastic surgery to be 'perfect', in an attempt to end all violence. But there is a small community living in the wild that is against the procedures, and is gathering city kids to fight back against the surgery. Now, this sounds like a decent idea, but the follow-through wasn't very impressive. For starters, the author just tosses you straight into this world, with no real explanation of the who, what, and how. He introduces all his made-up slang, talks about these impressive machines and what-not without actually explaining what they are. (Seriously, it took everyone in the reading group ages to figure out that a 'crumbly' is a middle-aged person)

He tries to shorten the exposition scenes, but in order to do so, he must scatter exposition EVERYWHERE. I swear, every other chapter went back and explained the plastic surgery. It got mundane really quickly. He of course has no idea how teenage girls view romance. If he did, I wouldn't have gagged every time two of the main characters got all couple-y. The adventure is also really, really boring. Just a lot of doing every-day stuff while whining about the surgery. The second book was even worse, and used the word 'bubbly' nearly twenty times per chapter. The third book got a bit more action, but the stupid slang that is never explained is still around.

Also, I kinda want to push the main character, Tally, down some stairs. She is THAT stupid and boring.