Giving up

I just finished reading Pretties, by Scott Westerfield. This, of course, means that just earlier this week I read Uglies, which is the first in the trilogy. I won't be reading the third book, though, which reflects entirely on the merit of the second book (or lack thereof).
Uglies was actually pretty fun! It's a story set in a future Earth society, and the whole premise was kind of interesting. Teenagers are "uglies" until their 16th birthdays, where they get this surgery and become "pretties." And they do nothing but party and carouse for a few years. Yeah, it was a bit preachy about our society and societal expectations, but whatever. You get a couple characters who decide to rebel and join the other runaways who have a camp society outside of the ugly/pretty city. The plot was a little bit predictable (read: it was entirely too predictable if Chelsea was able to pick up on it!), but it was still adventury and fun. In some ways it had the same sort of feeling as Stephenie Meyer's The Host, although The Host was much better.
So once I finished the first book, it had a little bit of a cliff-hanger, and I wanted to know how things got resolved. Unfortunately, that's not what the second book was about. Uglies followed the same main character, but the rest of the entire cast and entire plot of the first book was dropped until the very VERY end of the book. There was a plot in between, but instead of being a plot I was interest in, it felt like just a series of events that kept me from finding out what happened to the rest of the characters I cared about from the first book. Anyone can write a series of events, but that doesn't necessarily make a plot.
Then the end of the book didn't even adequately fill me in on what happened with the characters I liked. It got really formulaic too: every single chapter ended with an overly-dramatic "cliffhanger," which worked a few times in the first book but got really old in the second book.
They tried to make another twist at the end to get me hooked for the third book, but unfortunately it didn't work. I usually start what I finish; even if it's a crappy book, I'll still finish it. I intended to finish this series, but considering how much I skipped of the second book, I doubt I'd actually read any of the third one.
Final word: Uglies was fun and a good little read. Pretties was a disappointment. I won't be reading Specials.