Unwind : Neil Shusterman

Unwind by Neil Shusterman

I’m surprised that they bill this book as a young adult novel. It’s pretty twisted. When it comes to a dystopian novel, this takes the cake on originality. No there is no all-powerful nation. No there is no reality show that pits young children against one another. Yes there was a civil war and yes it was fought over abortion rights. Wait, what? Abortion rights? That’s the subject of this young adult novel? Yes.

I was hesitant to read this book. Not for any particular reason; I was just bogged down with lots of books in progress and wasn’t motivated to read this book. I had heard about it for a while and it definitely seemed up my alley book wise but eh, it was always on the bottom of my pile. I eventually powered through my ‘meh’-ness and started reading it and was incredibly intrigued. The concept of this book continually blows my mind.

Unwind takes place sometime in the near future (don’t they all) right after the Second Civil War has been fought. But this Civil War was not fought over slavery but rather abortion rights. The solution to this war was a compromise that allows parents to sign an order on their any of their children between the ages of 13 and 18 to be unwound. Being unwound entails having their body parts taken out and given to those who ‘need’ them. Technically these kids aren’t being killed because their organs are living on in the life of another. There is also the option of storking which states that any parent who is unable to raise a child to the age of 13 (when they can be retroactively aborted), they can leave the child on the porch of another family. If they are not caught leaving the child, the child then belongs to the family. If they are caught, then the biological parent must keep the child.

This story centers around three teenagers on route to be unwound. Connor is sixteen and a rebel and his parents simply cannot control him anymore so they sign him over to be unwound. Risa is a ward of the state who has to be unwound due to budget cuts to the program she belongs to. Lev is from an extremely religiously family who believes that ten percent of everything they own go to the church, including their children to be unwound. Lev is that ten percent. After learning their about their orders to be unwound, two of them “kick it AWOL” (aka decide to not be harvested) and one reluctantly agrees to go along.

Do I have your attention yet? Have you ever heard of a book with a similar concept? Probably not. Not only is this concept disturbing but it also feels oddly real. How many times have you heard of someone “living on” through another person or object? That is essentially what ‘living in a separated state’ of being unwound is. This book didn’t fully disturb me until you discover that these body parts that are harvested really do live on and can sometimes act on their own accord from their former body. Whoa! My favorite part about this book was towards the very end at Happy Jacks Harvest Camp (uh yeah, that what it’s called) and it is incredibly disturbing mostly because the author allows the reader to think of the most horrific thing that could happen.

I don't want to give away too much with this book because it's definitely one that has to be read to grasp the full concept of it. Listening to the radio this morning about another debate over abortion rights, I couldn't help but to think that this book has the slight possibility of maybe coming true. I can’t praise this book enough for its twisted and unique plot. Let's just say, I won't hesitate on picking up the sequel this next time around.