Review UNWIND by Neil Shusterman

UNWIND
By Neil Shusterman
Published November 6th 2007 by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Hardcover, 335 pages

Placement in the Pile: Top Picks!

Summary:
In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them.

Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can't be harmed -- but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away.
In Unwind, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award winner Neal Shusterman challenges readers' ideas about life -- not just where life begins, and where it ends, but what it truly means to be alive.

Review:
Sound like a heavy book? Well it is. And that is why I gave it a top placement. This book was not one I would have picked up on my own, but we read it for one of my book clubs and I thought it was so incredibly powerful and thought provoking that I was very very glad I read it.

The only way I can describe this book is: Lord of the Flies, meets, The Maze Runner, meets the Hunger Games, meets The Host, meets Holes. Throw in modern politics (bi-partisan fighting), the abortion issue, stem cell research, the donor system, religion, government run orphanages, teenage pregnancy, the origin of life/the soul, racism, gay marriage, terrorist radical groups, redemption, and what it means to be human -- and there you have it folks. UNWIND.

It will make you really re-evaluate your beliefs, no matter where you stand on the issues, and in a good way.

I highly, highly recommend this book. I now have Neil Shusterman and his other books on my TBR list.

Be warned of some emotionally intense scenes, and one graphic scene that is written in the least graphic way possible.