Unwind—an abridged review.

Golly. I don't know how I could abridge a review. I just think that it'd sound epic.

I've decided that I'm going to follow a system thingy for all of my book reviews. It'll be much more organized.

Anyway, the book I'll be reviewing today is Unwind by Neal Shusterman. It's another futuristic LOLWAT kinda book.

Background—In the near future, I believe it's sixty years or so, the United States had a second civil war (I'm assuming that it started a few years from the present). The war was between the pro-life and the pro-choice people. Eventually, the war ended after an agreement had been reached. They created a thing called 'The Bill of Life'. In that, they agreed that you could not terminate a child until the age of thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, a parent can decide to 'abort' their child by unwinding them. Right before the agreement that ended the war, some scientist figured out how to transplant 100% of the body (actually, it's like 99.4% because of useless organs). So unwinding technically keeps the child alive, but in parts and pieces. It made both sides happy.

Characters—The story follows three 'unwinds'—one a rebellious sixteen year old boy named Connor; another a girl, Risa, who grew up in an orphanage that decided that she wasn't doing as well as she could and they needed room for other children; and Lev, a 'tithe' whose family had ten children, and out of religious reasoning tithed their tenth son.
Connor found out about his unwinding while snooping through his father's office and saw three tickets (one for his mother, father and brother) to some vacation spot, and found the unwinding order after trying to figure out why there were only three. Risa, was doing a piano recital knowing that if she didn't do a good enough job, she'd be unwound for sure. Afterwards, she was taken to some important person's office and was told of her unwinding. Lev knew about his future his entire life and was treated in a high respect for it. He was sent off after having his thirteenth birthday party with his pastor.

Plot—These three kids are on the run. Connor starts it off for everyone by making a big scene on a highway where both Risa's bus and Lev's car are forced to stop. Risa and Connor run for it and Connor drags Lev from his car despite his struggles of wanting to get unwound. Eventually, they find an underground railroad of sorts.

My thoughts on it— It's a terrifying book. I'm almost freaked out, wanting to turn eighteen as soon as possible for fear that my parents might have me unwound. But it's amazing at the same time. My friends and I are making a pretend audiobook for it. :D It's going to be really fun. I'm Risa. The characters that the author created are just so full of the fear of getting unwound and they all have such different personalities. Obviously, the main conflict is them (maybe?) getting unwound, but there are so many miniature ones inside each part and chapter, even. Details that were hinted at in the very beginning pop up at the very end. It's a laid out amazingly.

Movie? Sequel?—A movie is set to be made for this book, and it's supposed to come out sometime in 2012. And I've heard rumors of a sequel, though I'm not sure what will happen. I looked at the author's website and blog, but I haven't seen anything about it. I really hope there's a sequel to it.

Recommendation—I'd recommend this to anyone. Adults, people my age, boys, girls, losers, cool people. It's just that fabulous. If you haven't read it, go get it from the library as soon as you can. Just make sure it doesn't make me have to return my copy to the library. I need it for the audiobook.