Tally Youngblood has been transformed many times over. First, she was an ordinary Ugly, awaiting the cosmetic surgery that will make her into a more socially acceptable Pretty. Now, Tally has become a Special, or a surgically enhanced super-human, as well as a member of an elite group that call themselves the Cutters. In Scott Westerfeld’s Specials, a young adult novel published in 2006, Tally is tasked with upholding the conventions of her socially stratified city. It is a future dystopia, where surgery is employed not only to modify the body but also to control the mind. Tally and her Cutters must intercept the pills that begin to flood their city, pills that cure these modifications. The authorities are invested in keeping the populace docile; they do not wish to repeat the mistakes of the Rusties who, three hundred years earlier, obliterated their civilization with war and environmental destruction. Westerfeld’s tetralogy—which includes the previous novels, Uglies (2005) and Pretties (2005), and the concluding book, Extras (2007)—explores the inherent conflict between authoritarian control and individual autonomy.

This guide is based on the 2021 Simon & Schuster paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain depictions of self-harm.

Plot Summary

Tally Youngblood truly enjoys being Special. Her physical structure and senses are enhanced, and she is trained to detect (and abhor) weakness. In Part 1, Tally and her enforcement group, known as the Cutters, pursue a group of outsiders, the Smokies, who have been distributing pills throughout the city. These pills disrupt the lesions placed in the brain during the surgery that transforms citizens from Uglies into Pretties; these lesions promote conformity and inhibit complex thought. The cure is thus a threat to the authorities.

During the pursuit of the Smokies, Tally encounters David, who was once her boyfriend when she ran away to the Smoke as an Ugly. While he fears her new transformation—she sports sharpened teeth, spinning tattoos, and fingernails like claws—he also remembers Tally as she was before. The Smokies attempt to kidnap some of the Cutters, succeeding in taking Fausto but failing to capture Shay. Tally intervenes to save her best friend and de facto leader of the Cutters.

Ultimately, Tally and Shay trace these pills back to Zane, another of Tally’s former boyfriends, for whom she still has feelings. Zane has taken an earlier version of the cure, which has damaged his nervous system. These new pills might fix this damage—though Tally still holds out hope that Dr. Cable will turn Zane into a Special like her. She can barely stand to look at him, with his slight tremor and vulnerable body. Shay comes up with a plan: she and Tally will free Zane and then track him to the New Smoke, whereupon the city authorities will destroy this rebellion. However, they must make his escape spectacular, so that Dr. Cable will take an interest in turning Zane into a Special. Thus, she and Tally attack the city’s Armory, wreaking havoc and letting loose a nano that eats through all substances.

The next evening, as Part 2 begins, Zane and his fellow Crims (short for “Criminals,” troublemakers in New Pretty Town) arrive at the lake. Tally and Shay remove Zane’s tracking collar, and the others let their communication devices float away on balloons. They are officially runaways, trying to make it to the New Smoke where they will allegedly find safe harbor. Zane and the others do not know that Shay and Tally will be tracking them, with the intention of alerting the authorities, who will demolish the New Smoke. After some days, Tally encounters another former acquaintance who gifts her a tracking device to the New Smoke. Shay and Tally decide to split up, so Shay can go ahead to the New Smoke while Tally keeps an eye on Zane. Shay is quite angry at this development, convinced that Tally puts Zane ahead of their mission. Indeed, Tally begins to change as she travels through the wild, her brain rewiring itself as she reconsiders her priorities.

When Tally finally makes it to the New Smoke, she is shocked to find that the rebellion has set up camp within the confines of another city, Diego. In Diego, people have already received the cure; their New System allows for autonomy and individual choice. Tally is mostly appalled; she is not Special here, as everyone can look the way they want. In addition, Diego appears to be expanding, building beyond the boundaries of its original parameters and encroaching upon the wild. This is something only the irresponsible Rusties would do, as the Rusties were responsible for destroying their own civilization before.

In trying to find Zane in Diego, Tally encounters the kidnapped Fausto. He is no longer Special, having received the cure himself. He tries to inject Tally with the cure, but she escapes, jumping off of a cliff—a stunt that would have killed someone without Tally’s surgical enhancements. Nevertheless, she is captured by city authorities—a rupture in her sneak suit gives away her location—and informed that her “morphological violations” have rendered her very existence a crime in Diego. She will undergo corrective surgery to return her to average, a prospect she loathes. Shay rescues her before the surgery can commence, as she needs Tally to stay Special. The two of them, in attacking the Armory, have inadvertently started a war between their city and Diego. Dr. Cable has blamed the assault on Diego, using it as an excuse to wage war and to take control of the city.

Thus, in Part 3, Tally is tasked with returning home and confessing to Dr. Cable. She must stop this war on her own. Fausto succeeded in curing Shay, so Dr. Cable is less likely to believe a confession from her. Before Tally returns home, however, she is witness to the beginning of the war in Diego, something that has not occurred in three hundred years, since the time of the Rusties. She also finds Zane, who has slipped into a coma: The damage done to his brain has been too great. He dies, and Tally again blames herself. She returns home in a fog of grief, guilt, and anger.

Along the way, she encounters David, who signals to her from the Rusty ruins, where he has been camping out, hoping to see her. He reminds her that she is not alone, though Tally cannot see the alternative. He also gives her an injector containing the cure. She may use it at her discretion.

Tally finally makes her way to the city, where she asks to see Dr. Cable. Instead, she is tricked into an operating room—they are going to despecialize her anyway—as Dr. Cable prolongs the conflict. She knows that Shay and Tally are the culprits for the Armory’s destruction, but she pins the blame on Diego because it will allow her to amass more power. At the end of their conversation, Tally bluffs and says that she has recorded Dr. Cable’s confession and she intends to continue the war and take over Diego. Now, Tally will broadcast it to the entire city. In the ensuing scuffle, Tally pricks Dr. Cable with the injector containing the cure. In a few days, Dr. Cable will no longer be Special herself.

Tally can do nothing now but await her upcoming surgery. Still, she observes the gradual change that happens to Dr. Cable. Finally, she is put into an operating tank—the surgery will clearly be a grueling one—and begins to panic. A voice tells her to be calm, and Tally remembers David telling her that she is not alone. However, once she gets a look at her rescuer, she is shocked. Dr. Cable herself has risked everything to free Tally. Tally, the doctor claims, is the last of her greatest creations. This legacy must be protected, and the doctor pleads with Tally to stay Special.

Ultimately, however, Tally decides that she has a more significant responsibility: listening to her own conscience and preserving what she believes is most important. She broadcasts her final manifesto, telling her friends and anyone else who will listen that she chooses to remain Special. She and David will remain out in the wild, ensuring that the cities and the citizens, with their new-found freedoms, will not return to the ways of the Rusties. Tally is out there to remind them that she will not stand for the destruction of the wild.