Unwind by Neal Shusterman Review...

Unwind Review

Hey everyone, so today i'm doing a little review of the book Unwind by Neal Shusterman. This book is set in a dystopian world where abortions are no longer legal, instead parents can make the choice to unwind their child when the reach the age of 16. Unwinding is basically where the child is killed and all of their body parts are used to help those who need them. This seems like such a morbid society but while reading it the whole Unwinding thing started to make sense. Parents tell their children that essentially they will still be living however it will only be parts of them, this means that one part of them may go onto someone who achieves great things and in turn the child that has been unwound has gone on to do great things also.

This book is told from 3 different perspectives of three very different characters and it explains their back-story and why it is that they are being unwound. 

Connor is 16 years old, his grades have always been average and he lives with his parents and younger brother, one day he discovers the tickets to a trip that is planned for the family, however there are only 3 tickets. He then finds the form that his parents have signed to unwind him in a few weeks, during that time Connor gets his grades up and tries to impress his parents and even though he knows that he will be unwound and there is nothing he can do about it he wants to make his parents suffer for what they have done.

Risa is 16 years old, she has no parents and has been living a State Home since she was a baby, when we meet her she s performing a piece on the piano and is struggling to get it perfect. We do not yet realise that her life depends on this performance and when she makes a few mistakes she is taken into a room and it is explained to her that because her grades are only average and her piano performance was only good that she will in fact be unwound.

Lev is 13 years old, he lives with his parents and 9 siblings, at the beginning of the book he is having a party to celebrate his life. This is because he is also to be unwound or tithed as his religion calls it. Lev's family give 1/10 of everything to their church as an offering to God, this also means that one of their 10 children must be offered and so Lev was always to be unwound even before he was born. He believes that what is about to happen to him is for the greater good as he will be blessed for being the sacrifice to God.

These three very different children all happen to be going to be unwound when they bump into each other, Connor is on the run across a freeway when the bus with the people from Risa's StaHo crashes because of the cars piling up because of Connor and then Lev's fathers car almost hits Connor.

The minor characters really bring this book together, we are introduced to a series of people known only as The Cop, The Mother, The Teacher, The Pawnbroker, Cy, The Admiral, Emby, Mob, Roland, etc. These people really are central to the story and they really add a new perspective.

Overall I absolutely loved this book and it's definitely something that i'd pick up again and again. I recommend this to anyone who likes the dystopian genre and also anyone who enjoyed the Hunger Games and Divergent trilogy but for me this series definitely beats the Hunger Games because we all know my feelings on that one.

Thanks for reading 

Leigh xoxo