Unwind

In short summary the book Unwind by Neal Shusterman is about a motley crew of three kids running from the government because they are deemed unfit to live and must be unwound. Unwinding is the government harvesting your body for spare parts. So there’s the characters Lev, Risa and Connor. Connor is a hoodlum child whose parents signed him off to be unwound. Risa is an orphan and because of the state homes overhousing, she is signed off to be harvested. And Lev is basically a sacrifice at birth to be unwound when he’s older. They then all meet up (for Lev it was against his will) to run from the government. The book leaves many unanswered questions but the climax was satisfying. The ending was obviously there just to set up a sequel which is fine but leaves said ending to be unsatisfying. I give this book a 3/5

  Unwind  is an enjoyable book but nothing to special. It serves its purpose but none more than that. While its themes are interesting and it gives ideas that are thought provoking and nuanced, it barely does anything with those ideas. While yes it is an interesting plot it doesn’t exactly do particularly too much with those ideas. I find that the backstory of Unwind is more interesting than the actual plot.  That being the second civil war that took place over the right of abortion. The points of view from the protestors and the government officials and the soldiers would be more thought provoking than three kids running from some adults to live. This book while good isn’t great I would recommend this book if there’s not much else in the bookcase. But it is still a fine read if you’re bored.

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Dystopia 335 published 2007

The book Unwind by Neal Shusterman, in a decently long summary is about three kids named Lev, Risa, and Connor all of whom are going to be unwound which is them being picked apart for their organs and limbs for the use of others but they run away except for Lev who is kidnapped by Connor. Long story short Connors a delinquent whose parents signed a waiver to have him be unwound so he runs away. Risa is an orphan who is being unwound for being an orphan. And Lev is being unwound because his parents are super religious and he’s being tithed which is deciding to unwind him at birth but unwinding him later in life. So the cops find Conner and he starts running away from them and coincidentally in the chaos kidnaps Lev in the middle of traffic which gives Risa enough time to run away from the bus she was put on to go to the unwinding station. They all run into the woods and while Risa is scamming people Connor takes a baby that was put on the doorstep of a family because the same thing happened to him and that baby died. Don’t pay attention to the baby though because its given to someone after a few chapters. They go onto a bus to be less conspicuous and then at the school Lev escapes because he’s not that much of a fan of being kidnapped. So he goes to the main office and calls the police and then his pastor who tells him to run away and not get unwound so Lev the pulls the fire alarm to give Connor and Risa time to run away. Connor and Risa run into a teacher who tells them to go to a store housed by a lady named Sonia. The duo go to Sonia and learn that the store is actually a safe-house for unwinds and they find Roland Hayden and Mai who are also unwinds as they wait for a guy called The Ice cream man to send them to other safe houses till they they go to an abandoned airport. Next we go back to Lev who meets a guy named Cy-Fi  who’s trying to go to Missouri and had an 8th of his frontal lobe removed and replaced through an unwound kid who was a kleptomaniac and now is trying to take over Cy-Fi. He works as Levs mentor through the rest of the time he’s there. Back to Connor and Risa they make it to the airport with the other Unwinds found by Sonia and because Roland wants to always be the top he’s trying to find ways to beat up Connor for superiority, Risa tells him this which makes Connor control his temper even after Roland attempts to sexually assault Risa just to piss him off. Key word on attempt as he in unsuccessful. Then they’re taken to an airplane graveyard leaded by someone named The Admiral and Roland attempts to bring him down through rumors. The Admiral sends Connor in as a spy for him to basically snitch on Roland. Lev finds his way to the graveyard too after leaving Cy-Fi a tougher person, he later joins a secret group that tries to destroy facilities that unwind people. Roland also learns to fly a helicopter. Admiral has a heart attack during a riot caused by Roland. Connor then gets things under control and with Risa and because he can fly a helicopter Roland, go to a hospital. they get caught and are taken to a camp to be harvested and Risa is forcibly taken in by a band who play during the unwindings. Lev shows up after becoming a suicide bomber with explosives in his blood called a Clapper. Roland gets unwound because his bloods pretty good and just before Connor is unwound, two other clappers Mai and a guy named Blaine suicide bomb the camp, and Lev is supposed to be the bomb but then decides to save Connor and another Unwind. He is successful and then he turns himself into the police. Connor and Risa join back up in the hospital and Connor is given a new arm and eye which he lost during the explosion which actually belonged to Roland. a nurse gives Connor a fake id  to save him from being unwound and Risa decides to stay paralyzed so she isn’t unwound, and Lev has his explosives taken out of him. Risa and Connor go back to The Graveyard and since the Admiral is too weak to run the place after denying a new heart they decide to lead it in his stead and they plan to fight against harvesting. Connor now stands at the top as the new Admiral. With that out of the way me and my partner discussed the slight themes pf anti religion as the character Lev is seen as a Christian and is perfectly fine with being unwound because of that. and since unwinding is written as a bad thing and so is conditioning a kid to be fine with it and this dystonia version Christianity condones both making it bad. My one question through out the book was why there was a baby. It served as nothing but slight character development for Connor but they could’ve explained the baby thing naturally without him needing to take the baby. A question my partner had was why there were these links to articles before some of the chapters and after looking up one of them we figured out that these were somewhat of an inspiration for the author to write the book. All in all Unwind is a flawed but good book with an interesting plot with nuances that will amaze you. I’d give this book an 8/10