“It is not dying, it is just not living.” These words linger in your head the whole time as you read through the impactful words Neal Shusterman laid on the pages of the incredible novel Unwind. The three characters are alive and real. You can feel them as they breathe in the novel. Connor, Risa, and Lev are the names that steadily appear in Unwind. They all have different stories to how they got caught up in the unwinding. Lev was brainwashed his whole life into thinking it was an honor, Risa grades were not high enough, Connor had “troubles”. They are running from the divided state in hopes that they can make it out alive. Being unwound means 99.4% of your body parts and transplant them into other recipients. No one really knows what happens in the thick walls of an unwind operation, but they know they know they never come the same. The fight these characters go through against the titles society puts on them makes them doubt every complex decision they make. Unwind is a futuristic thriller. Every page just draws you in further.

The images that play through your mind are gruesome, but vivid. The style of writing Neal Shusterman brought to this novel is brilliant. He provided three points-of-view on the unwinding giving you more detail then you could ever imagine. You get to live through this journey in the perspectives of a tithe, ward of the state, and a unwind. The science fiction element of the whole story just brings this berserk storyline to another dimension. Unwind is aimed at teens who want an eerie, unforgettable plot. Can they fight their way through it? Or fall into the vigorous arms of the unwinding?