“Team David or Team Zane?” was a popular question on Westerfansites and forums (and even an Amazon Poll) during the span of the Uglies series’s initial release. Readers enthusiastically debated whether Tally should be romantically linked with David, the self-sufficient, wild-born young man who first leads her into the Smoke, who teaches her how to survive in the wilderness, and who tells her the truth about her not-so-pretty world; or Zane, the charismatic, enigmatic leader of the New Pretty Town clique the Crims, the almost too “extreme” pretty who snaps Tally out of the empty-headed, pretty mindset, who is brave enough to share with her the experimental cure (though it costs him his brain), and who is willing to do anything, absolutely anything, to make up for chickening out and not leaving the city when he was still an ugly.

David or Zane? David or Zane? What love story in the Uglies trilogy is your favorite?

I for one like Shay. For me, the story of the Uglies trilogy is the story of Tally’s complex, epic, often twisted relationship with her BFFrenemy. It’s a tale of teamwork, sacrifice, betrayal, jealousy, double-crossing, rivalry both romantic and professional, and a few highly suspect moments of hoverboard snuggling. Shay is a driving force behind almost every one of Tally’s decisions in the series, and it is because of Shay—Tally’s love for Shay (and vice versa), Tally’s guilt over Shay, Shay’s obsession with Tally—that Tally is forced by turns to remain ugly, turn pretty, and become  …