UNWIND by Neal Shusterman

Unwind by Neal Shusterman is full of adventure and action, with surprises when you least expect them. This heart-pounding, dystopian fiction novel that got me hooked from the first chapter on and I couldn’t stop reading it.

After the second civil war in America, a new bill was passed. It was the Bill of Life. It states that you can have your kid "unwound" from the age 13 to 18 if you choose to do so. Unwinding is when your body is taken apart by surgeons, and your organs and other parts are used for adults in need of them. Since every part of the unwound person's body is being used, they are not technically "dead", so unwinding is legal.  Teens that are forced to be unwound are usually kids with behavior issues and are signed up by their parents, or are orphaned children who have no one to care for them. So when the main character of this book, Connor, finds the unwind order papers on his father's desk for Connor's unwinding in two weeks, Connor is scared and angry.  He decides to take his chances and runaway.  Connor must overcome all odds to survive until he is 18 and can not be forcibly unwound. 

Shusterman did a very good job creating the characters.  It seemed like they were real, because he put so much detail into them.  The story is told from three different character perspectives, and even though Connor is the central character, it was still really cool to see what the two other characters were thinking and feeling.  Shusterman described them in such a way that it was easy to visualize them in my head. In the passage below, you can easily imagine what Connor's girlfriend looks like:                    

            “Her eyes are sweet violet with streaks of gray. She’s such a slave of fashion- always getting the newest pigment injection the second it’s in style. Connor was never into that. He’s always kept his eyes the color they came in. Brown.”

 The characters helped developed the story to make it well-rounded.  I really cared about Connor as a person and rooted for him to survive.  I felt Connor's anxiousness and urgency with each turn of the page.

I rate this book 10 out of 10. It is the best book I have read yet. There is amazing detail, and awesome action sequences.  I really hope someone will decide to make this great book into a movie.

Reviewed by Grant Sandercox

8th Grade

**NFMH** This is a great student made book trailer on youtube by "SpunkRansom02":