This is a must-read series for anyone over the age of 16. While both have to do with the aftermath of war and it’s effects on the next generation, Collins and Shusterman are focusing on completely different issues beyond that.

Actually, there are several moments from this series that will haunt me.Ī recent Huffington Post article compares it to The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins, though I would not pit the two against each other. The scene from that final page will stay with me. I was on the edge of my seat, up until 2am reading the finale and it was worth it.

You will be confronted with issues like biomedical ethics, terrorism, politics, propaganda and more. There is a WHOLE lot more to this story, especially now that it spans four book, but it is better to read it and experience it than me spoiling it for you. While on the run, they also meet Risa Ward, a girl from a state orphanage who is being sent to be unwound because the government can no longer support the funding. Levi is a tithe from a very religious family who has been raised to be unwound as a sacrifice. Connor manages to escape from the transport when he takes a hostage, Levi Calder. Connor Lassiter makes several mistakes and pushes his parents to the point that they feel he should be unwound. No waste, the child is technically still “alive” but their body is being “put to good use”. If a parent no longer wanted a child, they could be unwound, a process by which the body parts are extracted and sent somewhere to be used. After the Heartland War, a war that came about because of the abortion debate, a truce of sorts was reached – parents had until the age of 18 to decide if they wanted their child or not. The Unwind Dystology, as it has come to be known/marketed, is the story of the near future. It was the kind of Science Fiction I loved – one that takes ethical dilemmas we are dealing with right now and throwing them to an extreme, but an extreme that doesn’t seem too far off (as Shusterman regularly points out by including actual articles from the past few years, complete with URL information in case you wanted to follow up). I was not disappointed, with Unwholly, Unsouled, and Undivided raising even more questions and issues. I was skeptical – was Shusterman just cashing in on the “YA series” craze? Could the story still be as powerful in a second time? Then in 2012 I saw Unwholly on the new books cart.

At least, I felt like Connor and his friends would keep fighting and surviving even if I wasn’t reading along with them. The book was published in 2007 and the story seemed to end on the final page. When I read Unwind in 2009, I had no clue it was going to be a series.