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    Extras
    Extras
    Extras
    Audiobook9 hours

    Extras

    Written by Scott Westerfeld

    Narrated by Joy Osmanski

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The final installment of Scott Westerfeld’s New York Times bestselling and award-winning Uglies series—a global phenomenon that started the dystopian trend.

    A few years after rebel Tally Youngblood takes down the Specials regime, a cultural renaissance sweeps the world. “Tech-heads” flaunt their latest gadgets, “kickers” spread gossip and trends, and “surge monkeys” are hooked on extreme plastic surgery. Popularity rules, and everyone craves fame.

    Fifteen-year-old Aya Fuse is no exception. But Aya’s face rank is so low, she’s a total nobody. An extra. Her only chance at stardom is to kick a wild and unexpected story.

    Then she stumbles upon a big secret. Aya knows she is on the cusp of celebrity. But the information she is about to disclose will change both her fate…and that of the brave new world.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateOct 13, 2015
    ISBN9781442397361
    Author

    Scott Westerfeld

    Scott Westerfeld is the author of the Leviathan series, the first book of which was the winner of the 2010 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Fiction. His other novels include the New York Times bestseller Afterworlds, the worldwide bestselling Uglies series, The Last Days, Peeps, So Yesterday, and the Midnighters trilogy. Visit him at ScottWesterfeld.com or follow him on Twitter at @ScottWesterfeld.

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    Reviews for Extras

    3.5/5

    1,600 ratings100 reviews

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    • 2/5
      After Tally Youngblood destroys the Pretties' society in [book: Specials], the whole world has to figure out what to do with their newfound freedom. One city decides to use merits (earned by doing work for the society) and facerank (earned by number of people talking about you) to dole out the limited resources. Aya, a girl raised in this society, is obsessed with earning fame. Pursuing fame as an undercover reporter, she finds an underground cavern and an unbelieavable secret.

      Westerfield is playing off the YouTube and social sites phenomenoms, but aside from his clever twist on the concept there's not a lot to this book. The plot never gripped me and I never warmed to Aya.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      this book was the best out of the entire series.
    • 3/5
      The narrator was different than the past 3 books, took a bit to get used to. Bit different from the other books but still a good read, even if the mc is a little annoying sometimes.
    • 3/5
      This last book of the series has a different narrator which is sort of annoying to me. I like the narrator of the other books much better. The storyline of the book is much different than the previous 3 books of the series.. none of the same characters and doesn’t really continue the story. 2/3 of the way through the book I’m still wondering why it is included in the series and why it didn’t end after the 3rd book. This one has an alright storyline but I liked the other 3 much better.
    • 4/5
      In this new installment of the "Uglies" series, we go forward 3 years in the storyline to how the world is remaking itself in the wake of the first books. Our new heroine is Ana, an "ugly" obsessed with fame and determined to reveal to the world the hottest stories to get recognition as a kicker (a cooler version of being a journalist). Very quickly, Aya gets out of her depth, of course, and stumbles onto a story that shakes the very foundation of this brand new world.I loved the Uglies books, and devoured this one. The world Westerfeld has built is so intriguing, so layered and detailed, and rich, I have to say that it is the strongest point of this book. I could read about this future Earth for at least another three books, there's so many questions I have about it and so many onion layers to the build. But Aya and her friends are, sadly, the weakest point. Aya is just not that likeable. Of course, you start out kind of uncomfortable with how determined she is to violate trusts and lie blatantly in order to get the fame she so desperately desires. But it's her inability to change that outlook, the fact that she maintains that attitude even in the last third of the book, that makes her frustrating. Then she suddenly changes her opinion in the epilogue. Her love interest is also a cardboard cut-out, though he has such incredible potential to be interesting. Instead, he's pretty plastic and does exactly what you'd expect him to do every time. Tally returns to these books, and brings with her the life and excitement of the former. She's such a strong character that she sweeps you very quickly into her wake, and without her the story would be empty. For fans of Tally and Shay, there's no disappointment. All in all, I recommend the book. It's not as strong as the other three, but its worth reading and for fans of the series, worthy of the cover price to add to your bookshelf. For new readers, I would have to say that you should go back and read the other 3 "Uglies" books before diving into this one, otherwise you'll be lost.
    • 3/5
      It was very interesting following a new city and new "race" of people in the Extras universe. I really didn't care for how Hiro spoke to and treated his sister so that grated on me quite a bit!
    • 5/5
      Loved the plot twists and turns- Aya, the main character, gets annoying sometimes but the action and tech makes up for it~
    • 4/5
      I liked Extras more than Specials because it introduces a whole new world (the one that developed after the "mind rain" Tally initiated). In this new world, Aya bemoans her low face rank (popularity) and wishes to "kick" a story that will send her shooting up the fame scale. I loved the idea that we all are newsmakers/storytellers who frame the world for everyone else. Aya is so immersed in this world that NOT having a hovercam to record her every moment is uncomfortable for her, like someone removed part of her memory. There is plenty of action and gadgetry to keep readers turning pages, chapter after short chapter. I recommend this for anyone who has enjoyed Uglies, Pretties, and Specials.
    • 3/5
      So, it's a couple of years after the end of 'Specials', and we're introduced to a new character and a city where your worth is determined by YouTube the reputation economy. It sort of felt like this story was set in Japan, just so the characters could have "Manga Eyes" and a few other cultural references. I liked the new characters, and it was good to see some of the old characters too. I liked it more than I expected to.
    • 4/5
      A well told adventure set in a future where the populace is contained in idyllic enclaves devoted to a luxuriant yet regimented lifestyle. This becomes a somewhat typical story of how the heroine learns more about the secrets behind those cities and how they work to subvert them. However, the story never lags and the use of cosmetic surgery to produce perfect faces and bodies (based on human evolution) adds a unique touch. Recommended if you enjoyed the Hunger Games (though it was written prior to that series).
    • 3/5
      With the approach of the Uglies Netflix movie getting closer I thought it was time to return to that particular universe with this add-on book to the original trilogy. We start in a new city and with a new set of characters, although some familiar faces make their appearance later in the book. Aya Fuse lives in a city where reputation is everything and video-blogging is a way to get massive recognition and credits. Aya has filmed what she thinks are some good stories but so far nothing has gone viral and hit the big time. Her face rank is a lowly 451,369 and to compete with her successful older brother, Hiro, Aya will need to break the top 1,000 like he’s just done. Luckily for her she has uncovered what could be the scoop of the century by stumbling on a clique who pull dangerous stunts in total anonymity. Can she infiltrate the Sly Girls, get footage and break the story? And if she does will Aya be ready for what follows if she becomes famous and leaves the Extras life behind?It’s interesting to take a look at a different part of the Uglies universe and the after-effects of what happened in the previous book in the series. Introducing it through a new character’s eyes was also the right way for the author to go. Unfortunately it seems to have left a lot of the excitement of previous books behind even though Aya’s adventures take her on some very unexpected pathways. It just feels like a step towards a younger audience than even the original trilogy had. Half-formed basic characters bounce from one encounter to the next and even when those we’ve met previously do show up they are almost unrecognisable from their previous incarnations. I now have serious doubts of continuing to the new trilogy.
    • 3/5
      Interesting both to see the aftermath of the previous book, and get a look at a different culture within the same universe. The plot was a little convoluted tho.
    • 1/5
      This book reads like bad fanfiction. It's just terrible. It's not even fun to read, which the previous books in this series all were, even if the plots started to get holes in them and there was often too much camping in the woods. This was just miserable.

      The problems started with the protagonist, fifteen-year-old Aya. This is the same age that Tally was at the start of Uglies, but Aya is not Tally, and consistently behaves like she's much younger. She is completely obsessed with achieving fame, but she doesn't seem to have any friends at all – just a small flying robot, Moggle. She does have a brother (Hiro), who seems to find her a nuisance, and her brother also has a friend (Rem, I think) who she seems to treat as a friend of her own, even though at one point in the novel he makes her swim to the bottom of a deep lake to collect the robot Moggle, instead of like, using a net or something. Oh also, early in the book she meets a reasonably famous guy (Frizz) at a party who develops a crush on her, even though he's so committed to telling the truth that he got brain surgery to make him incapable of telling lies and she lies all the time.

      And you see, this lying is related to why she seems to have no friends – she is so desperate to achieve fame that when she does become part of a particular clique, it's only so she can expose their secret (illegal) thrill-seeking and somehow achieve fame that way. Which, as a plan, does not even make sense. But nonetheless, Aya seems to regard other people as mere tools to be used in the pursuit of fame, being so astoundingly self-absorbed that she is really, really unlikeable.

      Also, she doesn't seem to have any parents or anything. In general, she seems very ungrounded – which again, is a huge contrast to when we were introduced to Tally in Uglies, who we knew to have parents (hell, her parents even appeared in one scene), and also friends (Peris, although he'd already been prettified). Aya has none of this background; she could almost be a robot with false memories who hadn't existed until just when the novel began. It probably would have been more interesting if that was the case.

      Anyway, if Aya is unrelatable and unlikeable, so too is everyone else. Hiro just seems kind of unpleasant early in the book, Rem has the incident with the lake, and Frizz is just a walking plot device. When characters from the previous books arrive – Tally, Shay and co. – not only are they really dislikeable but they're not even in character. In the intervening time since Pretties (which, by the way, is only THREE YEARS – the entire social structure this book describes was established and stabilised in THREE YEARS, what?!), Tally has somehow gone from how she was then to a gruff and celibate type who thinks nothing about getting random teenagers kidnapped by the people she thinks are the bad guys. Just... callous.

      The main plot, honestly, is pretty boring (although probably my contempt for most of the characters helped to shape my opinion), and an economy based on reputation doesn't even really make sense, although I'd be willing to forgive it that if it had done anything interesting with the concept.

      There was some interesting stuff around social media gone too far (I guess) – people in Aya's city seem to have Facebook (although it isn't called Facebook) installed directly into their eye sockets, so at any moment they can look up "their" feeds, and the feeds of others, and have these things projected directly onto their eyes. Kind of like Google Glass, but weirder. So that was interesting conceptually, but it added a whole extra level onto the narration – I think Westerfeld wrote more about what Aya saw on her feed than what she saw in the actual physical world – and it meant this book had a very different feel to the three that came before it. Honestly, I think it would've been better if he'd just written a standalone novel, with better characters.

      So in the end... I came away from this very disappointed. I felt like this book sullied my memory of the other ones, and particularly of the character of Tally. Uglies wasn't a perfect book, but it was interesting and I really liked it on the reread. The other books may have let it down a little, but this one did in a big way. I wish I hadn't read it. Man.
    • 3/5
      Interesting addition to the trilogy, neat how everyone has their own feed and strives for popularity points
    • 4/5
      The action moves from California to Japan. Where everyone is hungry for limited resources, one city has made the move to a "reputation economy" where fame and merit are the key to wealth. Aya is a 15 year old journalist, living under the shadow of her famous brother, working on kicking a story that will get her noticed. Her adventure will lead her to crazy train surfing girls, a radically honest love interest and eventually ties in with the Uglies trilogy. Aya can be a little silly, but she's 15 and the story is a lot of fun.
    • 3/5
      It's just not the same if it's not from Tally's POV. And just as with Uglies, Pretties, and Specials, the book starts out slow and then picks up speed.

      In the first three novels, the main mode of transportation and majority of the time was spent flying on hoverboards. In this novel, especially the first third, Aya spends time getting into this click to ride the Mag-lev trains. Aya is seriously obsessed with kicking a big time story, kind of like a reporter, so much so that she goes, or rather is forced, undercover. The slant that I could appreciate was that their economic system was based on merits and how famous you are. Which, in Aya's teenage mind, she would do anything to kick that big story in order to fit in and raise her "face rank."

      I honestly think the author is just all about the stunts. Kicking tricks like a littlie. The real plot doesn't really unfold until the last third of the novel. The middle third just barely touches the beginning of the plot.

      I liked Aya, and Ren, and Hiro. I liked that this book was in a different culture. I always liked how the author references our time, the time of the "Rusties" and makes it seem like we were so barbaric. Kind of funny.

      I'm glad they brought Tally back in and gave us a bit of closure on a few things. But it would have been so much better in her POV.

      Clean read.
    • 5/5
      What if being popular or famous defined who you were, how much money you made, what kind of house you got to live in. Perhaps our world is a bit like that, but what if you were famous or popular just based on how many times someone said your name. We get a different twist on this new world that Tally helped create with a face ranking system. In this final novel though, we go back and explore the humans using up the earth's resources too fast and how far certain people would be willing to go to stop it. It was different than the first three books and I was afraid at first that it wouldn't really fit in with the series, in spite of being in the same world. I was proven wrong and ended up really enjoying the book.
    • 3/5
      It was nice to see the impact of the first three books on the world.
    • 4/5

      A surprisingly fun and quick read. Westerfeld is pouring ideas into his books and instead of a single macguffin he crams this book fit to burst with ""what ifs"".
    • 4/5
      Right, so first thing's first: I read this a long time ago, it's the only book of the Uglies series I've read, and I actually didn't read all of it (I had a hard time reading anything in high school). I'll have to read it again someday, along with the other three, but I think I got enough of a read from it to determine if it was any good. I love concept of this, especially because at least the modification aspect is a possible future reality. Also, as a manga fan, I love the anime eyes thing going on. Since this was set a couple years after the last of the first three, I wasn't as confused as I would have been if I'd started with Pretties or Specials. I still feel that I need to read all of the books to truly grasp the whole story, which I plan to do in the future. When I do re-read this, I'll modify this review.
    • 3/5
      So, it's a couple of years after the end of 'Specials', and we're introduced to a new character and a city where your worth is determined by YouTube the reputation economy. It sort of felt like this story was set in Japan, just so the characters could have "Manga Eyes" and a few other cultural references. I liked the new characters, and it was good to see some of the old characters too. I liked it more than I expected to.
    • 5/5
      Save The World!
    • 3/5
      I thought there were only three in the series, but surprise! I actually really liked this one. I liked the ending better than Specials, although I figured out the ending half way through the book. It was still a good ride.
    • 2/5
      The fourth book in the Uglies "trilogy", and that is not a mistake on my part. However, I believe it was a mistake on the authors part not just to leave the trilogy as it ended. This comes across as a classic example of an author doing that one extra book purely for the extra money. It was not related to the story of Tally Youngblood and the Uglies/Pretties/Specials although they all made an appearance as part of the story.It would have been a good story had the author used the main plot idea as a base for a trilogy of books not related to the Uglies trilogy in this manner. There was too much going on for one book and it could have been extended into three separate stories and by omitting the Tally Youngblood link it would have been quite enjoyable in it's own right.It did sum up where the current "Facebook" online society is going where everyone has to put every little thing they do online for all their "friends" to see. Ok I do have a blog and a Facebook account but I don't live my whole life through it or care whether people follow me and like me because of it. The story did have aspects of 1984 (George Orwell) and even, Blind Faith (Ben Elton). So nothing that unique although this book gives it a more modern take on it.You will read and get some enjoyment out of it if you have already read the original trilogy but nothing that will enhance your life. 2 out of 5 for me.
    • 4/5
      The Uglies trilogy did not need a fourth book!
    • 3/5
      The unexpected 4th novel in the ‘Uglies’ series. It’s been over three years since the cure for the brain lesions was released and the world is slowly regaining what it has lost. Aya Fuse is a fifteen-year-old Japanese girl, whose one ambition in life is to be popular by “kicking” an interesting story about something important. In a world were popularity buys you everything including the best house, clothes, and friends Aya must do something great to change her mediocre life. In her search for this amazing story Aya meets up with the Sly Girls. These seemingly ordinary girls live on the wild side by riding on top of a super fast mag-lev train while trying to stay away from the kickers. Aya is forced to sacrifice her hovercam Moggle to be a part of their clique so she can gain access to their story but later rescues Moggle and uses him to unlock the greatest story every kicked. The one problem is that she got it all wrong. She has some help getting it right from her famous brother Hiro, her tech friend Ren, her boyfriend Frizz, the always-helpful David, and three of your favorite cutters and mine, Shay, Fausto, Tally. These eight people discover the truth behind the metal shortage and the inhuman “freaks” while once again trying to save themselves and the world from destruction.
    • 2/5
      Maybe I should not have read this 4th book immediately after reading the first 3 books. At first I thought it could be good. I liked the way he portrayed this new world where it's all about being known. Everybody uses the internet (feed) and tries to be famous. That was interesting but I think it became all a bit too ridiculous after she did tell her big scoop and every body started to chase her. Not sure if it is the book or it is just me. Looking forward now to read something different.
    • 2/5
      Compared to the first three, not as good. not even close.
    • 3/5
      This is a follow-up to the Uglies trilogy, focusing on a different character and different area of the world. A reputation-based economy is one I haven't read about before--nicely done! The characters were believable within their own small world, although the wider story wasn't terribly interesting. It was nice to see Tally (from the trilogy) from an outsiders perspective. This one was just kind of silly.

      Not necessary to read as a bookend to the trilogy (it really was an afterthought), but you need to have read the trilogy to read this book.
    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed the premise of the fame economy put forth in this book. It was fun to think about. I also liked the second group of Extras at the end, but but I didn't find many characters hardto cheer for. Aya was ok, but sometimes frustrating, and I've struggled to like Tally Youngblood throughout the entire series. If you appreciated the other Uglies books, you should enjoy this, too.