Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Review: Unwind by Neal Shuesterman

Summary: Connor, Risa, and Lev are running for their lives.

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.

Hey guys, Marissa here with another review. This is the first contemporary book I've read in an english class in school so we basically studied the whole novel. I have a lot to say about this one, so lets get started!


Review: If you listen closely, you could probably hear my screams as I finished the last part of this book. I can't even put it to words yet. Just saying this book was good is an understatement. It was nothing like I expected it to be and that made me love it even more. Since I'm so overwhelmed with how much I liked this book, I'm setting up this review in to different aspects of the book.

Plot/Setting: Like most dystopian books, the world is pretty much modeled like ours. (Which actually makes it ten times creepier, but only in a way a really good dystopian book can make you feel). That being said, we do bear many similarities with this world, with the exception of unwinding, of course. I found the whole setting to be great and the way it was built was perfect. Although I find the whole concept of unwinding extremely creepy and scary, I still think it made a great plot. It takes a controversial topic of our world today and takes it in a completely different direction. Its very eye-opening and I commend Neal Shuesterman on coming up with the idea. 

Characters: This is one of those books where I pretty much loved all the characters at one point or another. Once again, a dystopian book makes me feel anxiety for the characters. I got chills towards the end. I could go on all day about all the characters, but now I'm just gonna focus on our three main ones. 

Connor: I loved how much his character developed. I knew he would be a great character to follow throughout the whole novel because you can tell that he is going to be very dynamic and three-dimensional. And those are the kind of characters I tend to love the most.

Risa: Also, loved her. She actually became a lot more complex as the story progressed. I admire her because of her strength through everything and after everything she has been through in her past and the obvious situation she is running from now. 

Lev: Oh, Lev. That lousy tithe. At first, I didn't really like Lev because he seemed superficial and he was like an annoying little brother. But as the story progressed, I found myself most interested in him. He is probably the most dynamic character in this book. Theres also symbolism used with him, which also added to me liking him even more. Lev is definitely the character you really want to pay attention to. 

There were also many secondary characters that I liked. 

Writing Style: The writing style in this book is set up in to seven sections but within those, it is broken up again to the perspective of each of our three main characters, Connor, Risa, and Lev. I thought it really made the story better because you were able to focus on one person's perspective for a certain part and get a chance to read from all three main characters views, which is something that rarely happens in dystopian books. Also, the book flowed very nicely. There was never really a dull moment, even if it was an action-less scene. You just always wanted to know anything that you could possibly figure out in the section.
It might also be good to point out how much I loved the fact that Neal Shuesterman put little captions before each main section starts. High five goes to you Neal Shuesterman. I mean, how great of an idea is that? It was just one of those little things that made me love this book more. 

All in all, this is a great read and anyone who loves dystopian books should definitely check this one out.




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