Which Genre? (Review 3)

If we are talking broad terms, I would put The Pretties in the speculative fiction genre. Speculative fiction, as we learned, is all about the question of “what if?” In this novel, the overall theme is what if you were required to have a surgery to make you pretty when you turned sixteen. More specifically, I would say this novel would fit into the dystopian fiction category. Dystopian fiction is “often set in a future or alternate version of our current history—as though it could be our logical outcome based on what is happening in the world today” according to the Speculative Fiction worksheet passed out last class. Today we see a growing number of people receiving plastic surgery which in theory, is altering their image to be what they see as prettier. Humans tend to care a lot about their self-image and how others view them. A lot of people would go to extreme measures for their body image to be perfect. So based on our world today, having a surgery when you are sixteen to remove all of your flaws is a pretty realistic thinking of what our future could come down to. I think The Pretties could also fall a little bit under the science fiction category. There are a lot of advances in technology seen throughout the novel. For example, they have futuristic technology such as hover boards or wrist bands that locate you in a snap. Westerfield also comes up with this idea of a tracking chip placed on your tooth! That may or may not be invented now, but it’s definitely not common or something we hear a lot about.