Unwind

When I picked up Unwind by Neal Shusterman and read the back of the novel I was prepared to read a dark and disturbing novel that would haunt my nights and with any luck my days as well. I was ready for another The Giver or Rotters. Books that still haunt my dreams. I mean lets face it the premise is there, Parents are forced to birth all children conceived and all children must be raised until they reach the age of thirteen, at that point parents can chose to have their child "unwound" all their tissues and organs donated and used by others, there by ensuring that they continue to live , but in an altered state. Parents have the choice to Unwind their child until they reach the age of 18, where in the children then become adults. Now that is a scary premise for a novel.

The problem is Unwind just does not deliver. Our three AWOL kids find the "Underwind Railroad" (my own term, but feel free to use it!) too easily, and their travel through it lacks a sense of urgency or tension that should be flowing through this novel. Also the entire concept of unwinding and the society that grew-up around it just left so many questions for me. Do parents get paid for unwinding their kids, or do they pay to have them unwound. The reader learns right away that recipients get unwound parts for both medical and cosmetic reasons and that they pay for these parts. Emby has a lung that has asthma because that was all his family can afford, they pay on the back end, but do they get paid or do the paying on the supply side? That just bothered me. Also, Storking a baby was the most ridiculously asinine thing I have ever heard. Even today most states have a "safe haven" law where a baby can legally be left at a fire hall of police station, no questions asked and without repercussion to the parents, so why would a mother leave her child on a strangers doorstep like a flaming bag of poop. Seriously, that is the image that ran through my mind during the scene where the Mom "storked" baby "Didi". I know this was supposed to show how little the lives of children had become to this society and was a set up for the story Conner told about their experience with a storked baby, but I just did not feel it.

I wanted to like this novel. There were glimmers of real greatness in it. The urban legend of Humphrey Dunfee and how it spread through the unwound community, and the real truth behind that legend were gold. Another nugget of untapped gold was CyFi and his little chunk of unwound brain. His tale forced so many questions about what makes up a person and their for lack of a better word soul. Again the problem was, these were just little nuggets and they were just not enough to carry the story.

I think there is potential in this author and I may read other works by him, but this one just disappointed me. Unwind wound me up with all the potential but did not live up to that potential.