Book Review: Unwind

Title: Unwind

Author: Neal Shusterman

Genre: YA speculative Sci-Fi

Book Blurb:

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.

Review:

This book was amazing! The cover--not so much. I know, I know: "Don't judge a book by its cover." But seriously, I almost didn't read this book because I'd always assumed it was a horror story (admit it--the cover does look pretty terrifying.) Fortunately, my twitter book-loving friends kept on recommending Unwind so I did end up reading it.

The plot. Oh my freaking gosh. The plot.

It was amazing. It was novel, it was unique, it was unheard of. It was amazing. I'm going to save time by not summarizing the plot, but you can get the gist of it in the book blurb above.  I loved the concept of "unwinding." I mean, I don't think it's right or anything, but goshdarnit! It sure makes for a good story to tell! Just when you think you have the story all figured out--BAM--Shusterman hits you with a plot twist.

Okay, moving onto characters. Wow--they are all very diverse characters. The books is told for 3rd person limited POV, swapping between the three main characters (Risa, Connor and Lev) but the author occasionally throws in a side character for a short chapter just for kicks and giggles :-P  But seriously though, the characters are all unique and come from different backgrounds, which help puts in perspective how Unwinding has affected society in so many ways.

Oh my god though--one of the scenes ***SPOILER ALERT--KEEP ON SCROLLING IF YOU WANT TO READ THIS BOOK*** totally gave me the creeps. 

When Roland--a not so nice character--finally gets his own taste of his medicine, I couldn't stop shivering at the entire scene. Basically Roland gets "unwinded". Ugh--that scene--described step by step as each body party was harvested....***shivers***  Even I felt bad for Roland when he got unwound--and I hated his guts!

***Spoiler FREE Zone***

I love how Unwind brings up some questions like: is a person still alive if he/she is split into many different pieces (but all the different body parts are still alive)? Whose job is it to take care of unwanted infants?

I liked how the author didn't info dump readers. The book is split into sections. At the beginning of each section, there is a small (only a few lines) tibit of info that gives insight to the world of Unwind. 

I highly recommend this book if you're into speculative fiction or dystopian.

Rating: