Neal Shusterman’s excellent writing shines through in his new book.
Unwind is the first book in a series. It takes place in a society where abortion is illegal, but if a child is 13-17 years old, they can be “unwound”. In this book, unwinding is a surgical procedure that takes 3 hours where every single part of a child is alive and can be used elsewhere. This procedure separates the child into different parts, for example, an arm. This arm can then be used to replace someone else’s damaged arm. Unwinding became a thing when a war broke out between people, some against abortion and others in favor of it. Then, a doctor researched a surgical technique that allowed unwinding to be possible. After this, the war ended and unwinding became a standard procedure to get rid of troublemakers or unwanted kids. Another way to get rid of an unwanted child in the story is called “storking”, where you leave your baby on someone else’s porch and they are legally required to take it. Someone can be unwound if their parents sign the order to unwind them.
This story begins with a boy named Connor, who recently finds out his parents have signed the order to have him unwound. He then plans to run away, to save his life. Later, he eventually does run away, and during his escape, he thinks the police might have caught him. He then gets into a nearby truck, and the trucker offers to drive him away and help him escape instead of turning him in. Later, the trucker is caught and the police are there to arrest Connor, but he won’t let that happen. He darts across the freeway, casing accidents while avoiding the police’s tranquilizer bullets. A school bus and car are forced to stop. The school bus is containing a girl named Risa, also bound for unwinding. She runs away into the nearby forest. The car has a boy named Lev as a passenger, bound for unwinding. Not any regular unwinding though, because Lev is religious. Unwinding is considered a good thing to have happen to you in this religion. Connor uses Lev as a hostage to run away into the nearby forest, like Risa did. They successfully get away into the forest, but a cop follows them in. Connor uses the cop’s own gun to knock him out. Then Connor, Lev, and Risa find each other in the woods, and team up. They then find ways to avoid being caught and unwound. Many different unexpected plot twists occur throughout the story.
This book is a really great read, as the story and writing are captivating. It never gets boring, and each event is filled with detail. Shusterman’s writing allows you to easily construct an image of what is happening in your head. No matter what page you are reading, the story is interesting and fun to read. I think anybody that likes sci-fi stories without too much fantasy would love this book. If you like other books from Neal Shusterman, like the Scythe series, or other books like Cinder, this book is a great read. I rate this book 5/5 stars. I choose this rating because the book is always interesting and fun to read, and there aren’t any bad things about this book in my opinion.
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