Since everyone is raised to believe otherwise, Tally has difficulty accepting this notion. Biology certainly plays a role in attractiveness, but there's no "default" concept of pretty beauty is very much an artifact of culture. It's rubbish, of course, and Shay points that out. Moreover, making everyone pretty is the only way to enforce equality and peace: "So what if people look more alike now? It's the only way to make people equal." Tally's attitude and her debates with Shay show us how society indoctrinates children with the idea that there is a biologically-determined standard of attractiveness that is universal for the entire human species. At first, Tally is pro-society and Shay is the antiestablishmentarian. Tally and Shay offer contrasting views on the society in Uglies. As with any post-apocalyptic novel, Uglies isn't about how civilization falls but what happens after (hence the "post-"). Not only do we know what life is like in the city, full of recycling and plenty, but we see the ruins of "Rusty" civilization (presumably contemporary civilization, yes?) and even learn what caused its downfall. Unlike The Giver, however, Uglies has a feature-rich world.
Its characters are nothing to sneeze at, and its story is rather bland. Indeed, the dystopian aspects of this book are its best features. That's about where the similarities end, however I'd say that Westerfeld does this much better than Lowry. Both Lowry and Westerfeld show us the dangers of enforcing "sameness" to prevent conflict. It has the same type of a dystopia, and the protagonists of both books discover the dystopian nature of their society and rebel.
In many ways, Uglies reminds me of The Giver. Being pretty isn't all it's cracked up to be. Of course, being a dystopia, there's more sinister workings afoot. Until then, one exists as an "ugly," good only for learning and playing pranks, banned from the parties and glitz of New Pretty Town. With Uglies, Scott Westerfeld creates a creepy adolescent dystopia where "pretty" is decided by committee, and everyone at sixteen receives an operation to become pretty.
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