two paws up!

“Unwind” by Neal Shusterman

      I just finished a recommended book from the YA librarian at Mar Vista that is topical and a real page turner.  While the book has a riveting plot and well-developed teen-aged characters the author slips some philosophy in with the fascinating story.  The novel is set in the future where marginalized kids are given up on by society and sent to harvest camps to be “unwound” as rather unwilling organ donors.  The ordinary screw-up or late bloomers who might wise up and get back on track are never given that chance while some are chosen as a kind of religious sacrifice that ends their lives before their seventeenth birthday.  As a misguided concession after a societal civil war the country has accepted the concept of using unwanted humans for spare parts along with other strange practices such as tithing family members for unwinding and storking where babies are left on doorsteps of strangers. Surgical advances allow transplants of every body part so the desperate need for unwound parts by the injured or diseased outweighs the moral dilemma of taking lives.

     Neal Shusterman separates himself from run of the mill sci-fi by bringing numerous characters to vivid life including the rambunctious Connor, the talented but orphaned Risa and the straight-arrow gone astray Lev who find themselves outside the law and into some dramatic life or death situations.  There is much more in the brisk narrative with a subtle examination of the true sanctity of life and the acceptance of imperfection.