Wind Me Up

Unwind by Neal Shusterman is a novel I have had a hankering to read for at least six months. Lucky for me, the book group I host selected this novel as our June read. (Me doing the happy dance.) The cover alone was bait enough for me to be completely interested in reading the novel. And the question on the cover, “What if your parents could unwind you?” Unwind??? What the heck does that mean? Thumbs up on the brilliant marketing and slick advertising by Simon & Schuster. Baited and hooked me right in.

Author’s Website

The book in a nutshell: Le Civil War Due fought over reproductive rights, outcome is no more abortion, instead parents can choose to unwind (process by which an entire person is reused and parted out to help to other people who are ill or injured or who just want a set of nice new bright white teeth or a full head of hair) their children between the ages of 13 and 17. Three teens escape this “death” sentence and are on the run to avoid being unwound. Trust me, read the book and this will all make sense. They just want to stay whole.


And we are off…(drum roll please)

Top Ten Moments of Unwind:

1. Connor finding the order his parents signed for him to be unwound.
2. The 10, no 20, no 30 car…o.k. it was huge highway pile up that felt like a scene from Speed.
3. Conner’s memory of the storked baby.
4. The school yard ruckus and Risa & Connor posing as clappers.
5. Landing and uncrating at the graveyard.
6. The admiral’s teeth.
7. Connor and Risa’s connection realized.
8. Roland and his day of reckoning and unwinding.
9. Connor’s walk of honor.
10. Lev’s sacrifice and subsequent selflessness.

I was so tense through many parts of this book that I felt like I needed to take a yoga class after reading it. This is not a bad thing. Believe me I could use a good yoga class. Shusterman just kept me on the edge of my comfy I-could-sit-for-hours-reading chair. The suspense is cut with a knife thick in every chapter and I had many questions. The true life blurbs (aka soul for sale on Ebay and Ukrainian babies taken for their parts) at the beginning of the chapters are chilling and foretell the events of the story. Awesomeness if they make this into a movie. I kept hearing two songs in my head while I read this book: “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon during the scenes between Connor and Risa and “Beds are Burning” by Midnight Oil when the characters are at Happy Jack Harvest Camp.

Three questions I most want to ask Neal Shusterman:

1. Where in the h-e-double hockey sticks did you come up with this idea?
2. What happens to Cy-Fi/Cyrus-Tyler/Cy-Ty after Lev leaves him in Missouri? Please tell me he is not unwound!
3. Do you get chills thinking that the human race could be “one rationalization away from reality” and actually implement this kind of horror?

The novel centers on a world that is off kilter. I have read several dystopian tales in the last few months including: Feed, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, and Life as We Knew It. Unwind tops the list for me under the premise of “a world gone mad.”

Stay tuned to my next post about my FAVS: characters and quotations from Unwind.