How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
She sighed, closing her eyes. Without an interface ring, she was nobody. The elevator wouldn't listen. (2.31)
Some of the first technology we see is pretty small but big in meaning. Tally's interface ring is small, but it's basically a tracking device that lets her interact with all the smart devices in her world. (Is it crazy to imagine tracking teens? Not so much.)
Quote #2
The machine was lobbing the masks out the back, trying to coax more followers into the impromptu parade: devil faces and horrible clowns, green monsters and gray aliens with big oval eyes, cats and dogs and cows, faces with crooked smiles or huge noses. (1.40)
Here's a literal party machine: it's a machine that makes parties. (They used to make parties down at the party factory but that closed down.) This machine doesn't come back later (imagine this machine running wild in the Smoke), but it does tell us what New Pretty Town likes: if they build a whole machine for parties, they must like parties.
Quote #3
Of course Peris didn't have the scar anymore. The two of them had only used a penknife when they'd cut themselves and held hands. The doctors used much sharper and bigger knives in the operation. (3.16)
The surgery is the most important new technology in this book. (We can imagine the book without hoverboards—though we don't like to—but if there's no pretty surgery, there's no story here.) This surgery is more powerful than anything the uglies have, which makes it seem as if the system is going to win against the kids.