Main conflict: Tally had to decide if her desire to become a pretty would push her to the point where she would have to betray her new friends and turn them in to the Special Circumstances using a special tracking device that she would need to activate.

Resolution: As Tally learned more about the purposes of the Smoke, she learned to value the people and their ways very much. She fell deeply in love with a boy named David and therefore she burned the tracker that would lead to the Specials to finding this new beloved place of Tally's. Without Tally knowing when the tracker burned it set it off and the Specials came immediately the next morning.

End of the book: When in the Smoke Tally is told that the operation to make you "a pretty" has certain side effects. The operation causes lesions which alter and damage your brain to make you believe that the world is a completely care-free place. At the end of the book Maddy(David's mother) believes that she has found a cure to lesions, but it must be tested out because she can't be sure. Tally realizes that she must become a pretty so that Maddy can test this cure on her. If this does in fact cure lesions it could help the many generations to come and Tally is willing to risk her life for the benefit of others.