My Week in Book Review: The Unwind Dystology

The Unwind Dystology by Neal Shusterman

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 talented 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.

There are four main books in this series: Unwind, Unwholly, Unsoulled, and Undivided. The blurb above is for Unwind.

Part 1: No Spoilers

Whew—these books are not for the faint of heart! They are chilling and disturbing. In fact, there’s a part of the first book that I can barely read—not because of foul language or graphic violence, but because what’s being portrayed is so gut-wrenchingly, morally awful.

I will say that in order to appreciate the world of these books, you do have to suspend your disbelief that any parent would choose to unwind their own child. That was hard for me to accept as I first started reading, but the more I got engrained in the society and understood the background of how unwinding came to be (this is fleshed out more in the second and third books), the more believable it became—at least for the world it inhabits.

Some may feel uncomfortable reading these books. I did, at various points, and this was a reread for me, so I knew what to expect. In doing some brief research, I saw that these books had been banned from some schools, and only a few months ago, a woman posted on the series’ Facebook page, railroading the author for his “sick mind” and “sickening book.” The thing is, though—these books are supposed to be sickening. They’re supposed to make you upset. They portray a future in which extreme divisions in society led to an extreme solution: unwinding. Will we ever get to that point? I don’t think so, but our world is getting more polarized and extreme, and Unwind is a warning: don’t let things go as far as they did. Don’t forget what’s actually important in life. If we’re uncomfortable with these books, we’re still okay as a race. When we start thinking what’s happening in them is okay, that’s when we’ve got a problem.

There will be spoilers after this picture.....

Part 2: Spoilers

I read in the acknowledgements of the first book that it wasn’t originally intended to be a series. The first book does stand on its own—you could read it and be happy with where the story ends. It ties things together very nicely, while the second and third books end with cliff-hangers.

With that being the case, my thoughts are centered around the first and last books. The most moving moment in the first book, for me, is Connor shaking off the guards and telling them that he’ll go to the Chop Shop under his own power. The whole book, we’ve seen Connor learn to stop, think, and be smart rather than follow the impulsive urges that got him titled a troublemaker. He’s struggled with stepping into the role of a leader and a hero because he doesn’t see himself as that, but in that crucial moment when he believe he’s about to die, he owns it. All he can do is stand tall as he walks to his fate, but he’s going to do that. The pageantry is on-pointe as the other kids at the harvest camp gather to see him walk, supporting him in the only way they can, and he blowing Risa a final kiss before he enters the Chop Shop. That moment gives the good kind of chills. I might go so far as to say that the symbolism of this part of the book has almost Christian overtones. While it doesn’t translate perfectly, there are some pretty specific hints, like stating that Connor is the only unwind to have entered a Chop Shop and come out again whole. Death and rebirth, anyone?

I think the ending to Unwind maps very well to the ending of Undivided. In Unwind, Connor’s main goal is to not get unwound, and its finale is him coming to terms with it happening—but then he’s saved in the nick of time. Across the whole series, Connor’s goal continues to be not getting unwound. That’s literally the worst thing that can happen to him. But what happens in the end? He gets unwound. Then, plot twist—he gets rewound, all of his parts coming back together. His very body is proof that he defeated unwinding, though the process comes with a cost (again with the Christian vibes).

To give one more point of comparison between the first book and the last, Unwind ends with Connor assuming a fake identity, but Undivided ends with Connor reclaiming the identity that unwinding tried to take away from him. Unwind ends with Connor taking on the responsibility of the AWOL unwinds at the Graveyard, but Undivided ends with him showing compassion, in front of thousands, to the parents who would have unwound him. Unwind worked on the unwinding problem by narrowing the age gap during which a teen could be unwound; Undivided ushered in an era where better technology combined with a country’s awakened conscience would obliterate unwinding.

So there you have it! Those are (a few of) my thoughts on the Unwind Dystology. There are so many more conversations that could be had about Lev’s journey and final sacrifice, Risa’s decision to do the media campaign that supported unwinding, Cam and what it means to be human, Una and how to deal with grief. These books aren’t cozy, but they make you think. If you enjoy a gritty, ethically challenging read, these books are for you!

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