Okay, you’ve had to sit through me getting my cranky on in my last post. So here’s something much more happy-making:
Yes, it’s the German covers of the Uglies trilogy.
In a funny way, these are the most “realistic” of the covers for the trilogy. The model for Ugly looks like a real girl. Her skin is a bit freckly, her eyes a bit small. Not that she isn’t pretty, but she’s definitely not a pretty.
But the image for Pretty is almost freakish. As I’ve often said, if we saw a pretty here in our world, we’d probably find them a bit weird and exaggerated. Plastic sugery arms races tend to go in strange directions, after all. (Warning: Following that link risks severe eyeball damage.)
And Special is the best of all. It takes the exact same face and makes it totally mean. Sort of like a Chucky doll with tattoos.
Casting your eyes over all three faces, you see the subtle change in expression that mirror Tally’s journey, from curious ugly to vacant pretty to imperious, cruel Special. How cool is that?
Big props to the designers over at Carlsen, the German publishers of Uglies.
By the way, does anyone know a German-language reason why the titles are singular?
the pretty’s one kind of looks like on of those creepy porcelin dolls that my omah has(well she is german..ohma and all)
i like how in specials they make the base color blue-the color for suspense-it really adds to the dramatic effect.
um idk why but ill ask my german uncle that speaks german alot. well im not really liking the pretty/special people. its a little to chuckyish. and the last one looks a little more goth than i pictured but I really like the subtitles
ShellTheShark- I agree that the eyes in our covor should be a little bit bigger; however, I don’t think that the hair is crazy. I think it’s just a red light shining on the hair. Not sure though.
hey scott,
the above explanation about requiring an article isn’t quite right. germans do add an “ie” or “eee” sound to the end of a noun or noun phrase to make it a sort of cutesy nickname, just like we do in English–and like you did with “uglies” and “pretties”.
they shorten the word to its first syllable then add the “eee” sound. “nazis” is a good example. it’s short for “national socialist”. “national” in german is pronounced “nah tzio nahl” or “nazi” for short.
yes, they use it with an article, but if someone were to title a book ‘nazis”, sans article, no one would blink an eye.
i think the real reason might be that they don’t tend to turn adjective complements into nouns. don’t take my word for this. grammar books tend to be basic, so i couldn’t find information on this, but in english we take an adjective complement and freely turn it into a noun (ugly; she is ugly, she is AN ugly).
this sort of thing makes instant grammatical sense to an english speaker, so that when you coin new nouns using adjectives (or verbs, or adverbs, or …) you are immediately understood.
germans don’t do that. you can turn any adjective complement into a noun grammatically, by adding a noun ending, but then your adjective will mean “the [adjective] ones”. e.g. “ugly” = “haesslich” -> “die haesslichen” = “the ugly ones”, which is not the same as “uglies”.
in any case, the meaning of the coinage in english wouldn’t be accessible to germans, and the direct translation (hasslichis; hubschis) is terminally awkward sounding.
I can’t believe the plastic surgery arms race gallery doesn’t include Catman.
omg I love them! I just like that you can tell they’re all the same person but look completely different. A lot better than the American cover though the American covers are tons better than most international covers. The specials one is my favorite!
I do love the German covers more than the American ones. On the Special cover, the tattoo looks moreintricate and interesting.
Those covers look awesome. But I still prefer the American ones. I’m not sure I would be able to stand looking at the Pretties or Specials covers every time I picked the thing up to read. I might, you know, claw my eyes out.
So I’m doing this article for my high school newspaper, and I emailed you about it, but I’m not sure you answer your e-mail, because some authors don’t. So I thought I’d mention here also that I’m looking to get a quick e-mail interview.
preferably before my advisor eats me alive.
thanks. let me know at writer_chick18@yahoo.com
the pretty realy reminds me of GEMMA WARD so i guess there really are natural pretties in the world
funny cuz i always pictured the pretties to look like gemma
I agree with writer_chick, i like the American covers better. The german Uglies looks normal, but Pretty looks creepy beyond reason, and special looka too gothic. And whats with the sayings, they don’t make much sense.
Those lines on her face on the Uglies cover indicate that her nose is too big. But in the book Tally told David her nose was too small. Anybody else notice that.
Your right (IndigiEyes) the book did indicate that tally nose was small.
i know im slow i didnt post yesterday but i love the covers we need more germans i like the covers more they make more sense
after looking at the pretty for a while, it seems normal to me. Thats probobaly what happens with the futuristic society when they first saw the pretties.
One question though, do all pretties have the same color hair??? exact same body?
I totally love those. Good going on somebody’s part.
Those. Are. So. Fool.
I like how they are the same person in the same pose.
Why are the american covers so bogus?
i may buy the English one just for fun.
Can we please see the ALL the covers? that would be so icy.
Please post the first three chapters of EXTRAS.
Today I got a new skate board (i WILL stab you 13 times with a rusty nail if you call it a sk8board)
The girl on the Pretties cover looks like a dolfie…I’ll never be able to look at them the same again. *shudders*
But the German cover-makers did a fantastic job, I’m really impressed with how they turned out. The English versions of this series don’t really show that transformation (from non-plastic surgery to the extreme of it) so being able to see it on the cover is really…I dunno, it just hits you the lengths the people in the book go to ‘fit in’ and be ‘pretty’ etc. I also really like how the skin tones change, from more earthy tones to plasticy pink to frosty blue, it reflects the nature of the people a lot. I love, love, LOVE how they did the titles! Because I’m weird I can actually see them rotating on an axis when I look at the three books. Question though, isn’t “Extras” a part of this series? Or did I mis-read something, somewheres?
I remember someone in my school did their Extended Essay for IB on the ‘perfect face’ (or most attractive, I forget now) and how people thought that (I think she only did women, but I could be wrong) the women who were more attractive were the ones whose facial features held the golden ratio (…or something else mathematical along those lines, it appears in spirally shells and nature…)
Hm… Hey, Scott, I have a question about Pretty surgery! So, in Interior Design/Housing class, we learned about the 3/5 rule that applies to all design scenarios, not just buildings and stuff. The idea is that things look “off” to the eye if they do not have a ratio of 3 on top and 5 on bottom, or the 3/5 rule. Does that apply in your futuristic society?
Oh my god I totally really love those covers! Alot! I wish I could read German just to have those books and be able to read them!
wow. number 70?
anyway.
omygosh i love the special one! probably because she looks a bit emo. plus the blue tinge sort of highlights the icyness of it all.
Wow i’ve just learned so much about the German language it makes me very very very happy. All i know about it spanish i don’t even think i know that much about spanish or english. Thanx for the lesson guys. And i do like the German covers i prefer our version of specials and uglies though. Our cover for uglies looked kinda scared like you could see her feeling not comfortable with the way she looked you know you could connect with her insecurites but this one it is just very literal and she looks kinda aggresive and i don’t recall tally as being aggresive in the first book. But their cover for Pretties was good.
i like the special one the best. very dark and scary almost.
wow, the covers r sooo awesome! i wish thats wat they looked like in the US!
Haha, the pretty nose kind of looks bigger than the ugly nose.
I think that the titles are in singular form, because their only referring to Tally herself.
i like the american covers better!
p.s. have you seen the brittish covers? they dont even go with the story!!!!!
the pretties (or should i say pretty?) cover scares me. 🙁
I really like the germans covers, especially Specials. Indeed, they’re more realistic. France has only uglies for now, and it’s the same cover as England.
grrr… why dont you write a mew post! i am like going to ur blog every day waiting for a new one (yes that is how boring my summer is). still tho is it so much to ask. anyway i really like the covers. the specials one especially (he he). ooo, where can i see the french uglies Virginie????
They’re all gorgeous, really. Why can’t the American versions be just as gorgeous? (Not that they aren’t gorgeous already).
On a completely unrelated note (but at the same time kinda related) I just received my summer reading list a few days back. I can read uglies.
AS A GRADE.-dies- And then all my friends got to hear me going on and on about how “you should really read Uglies it’s amazing it’s such a good book it’s a lot better than it sounds it’s really not that long!”
So. Yeah.
CCC RRRRR YY YY
CCC CC RR RR YY YY
CCC RR R YYYY
CC RR RR YY
CCC RRRR YY
CCC CC RR RR YY
CCC RR RR YY
i dont get to see the 1st three chapters of EXTRAS before i go to camp for 2 weeks
sorry for the uber obnoxios post
the Cs & Rs & Ys didnt spell out CRY *cries*
The special sort of reminds me of a Bratz doll.
@ Bri-la, the french uglies cover is just like the american one, and not the english one (sorry for my mistake above:o)) We’re not really original for covers in France, but fortunatelly we keep the original covers for books for young people and children. Book covers for adults are usually “uglies” hihihi
Hey scott…
Those covers are cool, I love seeing the transitions between them. I speak German but I wouldn’t be able to explain that grammar rule if I tried, Claire did a good job in post 54. It’s because you can’t take a word in German and convert it into plural (normally we do that by adding “n” or “en” to the end of the word) without adding an article (Die is for plural, pronounced “dee”). Like Claire said, Die Haesslichen would mean the ugly ones.
I’m back from Nationals!! And now I have 2 go read the posts 2 make sure I havent missed anything!!
Hey Scott,
This just came to my head. I was wondering if Extras will be hardcover or not? Please reply.
Jessie, what king of national?
i LOVE the german covers…especially the one for special… i think i’m gonna buy these books…even if they are in german…just because i love the covers soooo much… if anyone else shares in my insanity…just go to amazon.de and search for Ugly – Verlier nicht dein Gesicht von Scott Westerfeld…
just in case anyone was wondering i haven’t actually bought them…yet…but i think i’m gonna ask my bf to get them for me for my birthday…which isn’t till november 🙁
It was Volleyball nationals. A tournament in Orlando…. our team went, it was so much fun!!
When are you going 2 post some of the Extra’s?? I cant wait!!
WOW that’s so kool. I was hoping you were going to say volleyball because that’s my sport! weird but kool. I’m also in a volleyball team.
Anyway, can’t you at least tell us something about Extras, Scott? I’m dying here…….
Nah, Tally went from curious ugly to vacant pretty to emo girl who fell in a freezing pond.
But I think the covers are cool. I like ours better though.
OMG Kathy thats cool!! Is it a travel team?? And yeah scott, PLEASE
Sorry messed up…. tell us something bout extras!!
Zowie…the Pretty one is scary! I love the Special one, though. It’s seriously cool.
honestley i havent seen a special cover that really catches how scary a special would look like… the covers i’ve seen mostly catch the elegance of a special
this specials cover is a little better but not as wolf-like as i suspected
Hey peyton! i agree.
that the specials is sort of cool but not as predator/wolf/scary as previously imagined.
i guess thats so we’re not too freaked out to buy the book.
but if someone just saw the book pretty? by itself?
man it’d be awkward.
Hey peyton! i agree.
that the specials is sort of cool but not as predator/wolf/scary as previously imagined.
i guess thats so we’re not too freaked out to buy the book.
but if someone just saw the book pretty? by itself?
man it’d be awkward.
especially if you were a guy.