UnDivided Review

UnDivided by Neal Shusterman
Published by Simon and Schuster on October 14th 2014
Genres: Action & Adventure, Death & Dying, Dystopian, Science Fiction, Social Issues, Young Adult
Pages: 384
Format: Audiobook
Goodreads

Teens control the fate of America in the fourth and final book in the New York Times bestselling Unwind dystology by Neal Shusterman that Horn Book Magazine calls “ambitious, insightful, and devastating—a fitting conclusion to a provocative series.”

Proactive Citizenry, the company that created Cam from the parts of unwound teens, has a plan: to mass produce rewound teens like Cam for military purposes. And below the surface of that horror lies another shocking level of intrigue: Proactive Citizenry has been suppressing technology that could make unwinding completely unnecessary. As Conner, Risa, and Lev uncover these startling secrets, enraged teens begin to march on Washington to demand justice and a better future. But more trouble is brewing. Starkey’s group of storked teens is growing more powerful and militant with each new recruit. And if they have their way, they’ll burn the harvest camps to the ground and put every adult in them before a firing squad—which could destroy any chance America has for a peaceful future. “Everything culminates in an action-packed, heart-wrenching conclusion guaranteed to chill readers to the bone” (Kirkus Reviews).

 Julie’s Review:

What a ride. For those of you not familiar with this series, it is absolutely frightening because of how realistic it feels while reading it. This type of thing feels like it really could happen and that makes it so dark and so eye opening. It really makes you think about the horrible things we humans can justify to ourselves and even regulate into being perfectly acceptable.

This review spans the last 3 books of this series, since I already reviewed the first book separately. That book earned its 5 stars but these next three have been all over the place for me. Books 2 and 3 to me really could have been one book in my opinion. The third book particularly felt a bit fillerish. I think it might be the style that was getting to me. So much of it reads dry, like a news report. Of course, there are a lot of advertisements and news reports included within the plot so that kind of adds to the issue, but I’m talking about the narrator voice switching from character to character and observing and reporting what they’re doing. I’m not really big on that style of storytelling.

Actually, those news reports that were sprinkled within the books really got on my nerves since I did the audio. It was meant to be realistic, so the internet articles included links, but then the links were read out loud, with each character read out loud. Like this: h t t p colon forward slash forward slash w w w dot news site dot com forward slash news forward slash media forward slash September forward slash 20 forward slash 2013 forward slash this dash article dash is dash about dash feral dash teenagers dot html. GAHHHHHH!!! A few of these is enough to make me want to unwind my ears!

There’s a point in every dystopian suspense story where you think you’re about to lose all your favorite characters and it freaks you out so much you might actually cry out. I actually had one of those moments just as I was pulling into work, and had to wait all day to get back on my commute home to find out if that really did happen and if all hope was lost. But this author is brilliant, and this final book ties in so much and pulls in characters we haven’t seen since the first book for an epic of epicness ending. Everyone important to the plot gets their ending, one way or another. The three main unwinds from the first book – Connor, Risa, and Lev – in addition to the rewind Cam and a tagging-along low-cortical girl Grace, form an amazing core of characters who each play a huge role in changing the future of unwinding.

 

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