Scott Westerfeld is the author of, I think it's eighteen novels now. His characters range from AIs to steampunk sentient flying creatures, and he's written both adult and young adult books.
My favourite books of his are the Uglies/Pretties/Specials series. Convincingly written from the viewpoint of a teenage girl, it warns of the dangers of our beauty-obsessed society.
In the world of Uglies, everyone calls themselves Ugly until their bodies are re-shaped by extreme cosmetic surgery and body sculpting in their teenage years. Every teenager can't wait to be old enough to be made Pretty.
Of course, this world of beautiful people isn't as benign as it looks. There's a price to be paid for being Pretty. But they don't know what it is until Tally stumbles upon the truth. Scott has set up a brilliant world where people are controlled by beauty in far more terrifying ways than even the present day.
Scott manages to show us the dangers of accepting a culture where we're encouraged to cut our bodies open, inject them with dangerous stuff, and think of it as success. In Uglies and Pretties, the characters pay the ultimate price for their acceptance of beauty. They lose their freedom to think for themselves. But, crucially, Scott gets over his message without preaching to us, which makes the stories even more powerful.
What I love most about these books is that the story is a modern-day parable. There are many women who are prepared to turn themselves into stick-thin airhead false blondes if they think it will make them more "popular". Take a look at Uglies and Pretties, and don't do it.
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