Unwind Review

Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Narrator: Luke Daniels
Series: Unwind Dystology #1
Published by Simon and Schuster on June 2nd 2009
Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
Genres: Action & Adventure, Dystopian, Young Adult
Pages: 352
Format: Audiobook
Goodreads

The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.

 Julie’s Review:

Unwind caught me by surprise and blew me away. Seriously, it tackles a very sensitive topic head-on (abortion) and creates a scary world where unwanted children can be “storked” (abandoned on someone’s doorstep) and can later be “unwound” rather than aborted. Unwinding is taking someone apart organ by organ to use for transplants to save another person’s life (or replace a broken limb) but the teen being unwound never truly dies since he/she lives on in other people. I mean, come on, how disturbingly awesome is this story line?

I had purchased the Unwind audiobook a while back as a daily deal or something like that, but it wasn’t until I got a gentle nudge from Shannon @ It Starts At Midnight  (in reply to our Chat Between Chapters: Books that ruined you for other books discussion) that I finally decided to make it a priority. Also, this serves as a #ShelfLove read, so hurray for that.

I’ve been looking for a new series to start that would knock me off my unicorn and I think this one is it. It is just that powerful and shocking. Neal Shusterman is incredibly talented and the descriptions of events and characters are vivid. Each character contributed an important piece to the pie as the story unfolded. There were plenty of times I didn’t know if someone was a good person or not and what their motivations were. This book slowly gave away its secrets in an intriguing way.

There were a few scenes that really stayed with me, long after I finished the book. One of these was the scene describing being unwound from the POV of the person being unwound. It was so freaky. Another scene that affected me was when an Unwound’s memories (from a brain transplant) were driving another character so strongly that he had to act even if he didn’t understand what he needed to do. What a powerful and scary world this book portrays. This book is full of such gems intricately woven together to continue to give me chills.

If you’re a fan of dystopias in general and want something unique that will blow you away, pick this up. Upon finishing this book I quickly went and used another 3 Audible credits to get the rest of the series.

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