Unwind

Shusterman's Unwind asks two questions: “If life is to be protected before birth, why isn't it protected afterwards?”, and “If life is to be protected after birth, why isn't it protected before?”

In the near future the pro-life vs. pro-choice battle has been fought and compromise has been reached. Human life is sacred from conception to thirteen, but from thirteen to eighteen parents can have their children shipped off to government run Unwind Camps where they are taken apart for spare body parts.

Connor is a bad seed whose parents have given up all hope, Risa is from an orphanage that has had a budget cut and needs to cut beds, and Lev is the tenth child of a family that is offering him as a religious tithe. They are on the run to save their lives. They only have to survive until they are eighteen, but the authorities are after them.

Shusterman amazingly never comes down clearly on either side of the abortion debate, but asks everyone to think about his or her own stance and reasoning.

Unwind is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, particularly in it's focus on reproductive issues.

Full of action, emotion, and a bit horror, Unwind pulled me in and kept me reading right to the end.
Unwind
Neal Shusterman
Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers 2007 $16.99
9781416912040