Book Review: Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Unwind (Unwind, #1) by Neal Shusterman
Narrator: Luke Daniels
Series: Unwind Dystology #1
Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers on November 6, 2007
Genres: Dystopia
Pages: 335
Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
Format: Audiobook
Goodreads

An alternate cover edition can be found here.
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.

I added this book some time ago to my TBR pile, and I finally listened to the audio version a couple of days ago.

This is a world where the pro-choice and the pro-life groups went to war, and the outcome of it was having the possibility to abort retroactively, from when the child is 12 until when they are 18. This process is called unwinding. As Shusterman wanted to transmit how these youths would live in a situation like this, this is purely a YA novel, which I was not sure I was going to fully enjoy. YA tropes, including black and white situations, heavy-handed interactions, and bad guys that are very very bad, are present in the book, and at first I thought it was going to be a deal breaker for me. But the story soon became interesting, and the characters, despite being teens, were well-crafted, and I soon started to root for them. The story had great rhythm, and I have to say I didn’t get bored in the least, even though some cookie-cutter evil characters.

While Unwind is written by a man, I missed how this situation affected women becoming pregnant, since the current pro-life and pro-choice situation severely affects our health and well-being. There is some mention of how unwanted babies can be storked, but there is no mention of how this affects women. What about pregnancies that are a danger to the mother? What about pregnancies as a result of rape? Is just stealthily abandoning your child your only option? I guess this situation is doing a disservice to misunderstood teens, but the problems affecting women all over the world seem to still be the same. I also missed whether anticonceptives are allowed and used in this society, and how they impact women and couples. I understand this book is only from the POV of these wronged teens, but it seems to be a missed opportunity.

I listened to the audio version of the book. While Luke Daniels’s narration was generally good, I found some parts to be rather monotone.

Trigger warning: There’s a crude scene in the book where an unwinding happens. I found it quite unpleasant, so beware of this if you decide to read this book.