tl;dr: If you have any interest in YA and/or sci fi thrillers, especially that address philosophical/moral issues, this one might be right up your alley!
If you've been keeping up with your new releases, you might have noticed that Neal Shusterman's The Toll (the third and final installment in his Arc of a Scythe trilogy) was recently released. I wasn't familiar with this trilogy, but I greatly enjoyed Challenger Deep (a standalone YA offering from Shusterman), so between that and the number of positive reviews for the trilogy, I decided to add the first book, Scythe, to my to-read list. Those reviews also included a few references to this title, Unwind. The premise intrigued me, so what the heck; onto the TBR with you as well!
Fast forward a few days to a work trip to St. Louis, when I somehow managed to get to the airport without a book. In general I try to do my book-buying at my local independent bookshops, but this was an emergency; I had a little time to peruse the bookstore in my terminal (thankfully these still exist, for now) and was delighted to find Unwind just sitting there waiting for me.
The premise: After a bloody second Civil War over the legality of abortion, the country settles on a compromise by which embryos/fetuses/children cannot legally be destroyed from conception until age 13. But between ages 13 and 18, a child's legal guardians can choose to retroactively terminate them by having them "unwound"--that is, surgically disassembled, with all their constituent parts sent to people in need of, say, a new arm, a new heart, a new spine, new brain tissue, etc. In this way, pro-lifers are satisfied because 100% of the child's parts (well; 99.44%) remain technically alive. Disturbing? Absolutely. But I challenge you not to feel intrigued.
This is one of those premises that feels so out-there and borderline inflammatory (I remember seeing comparisons to Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal) that it could end up a total flop, or come off so absurd that it's not relatable. But Shusterman executes ingeniously, digging deep into the human (and philosophical, and economic) implications of such a policy while bringing them alive through the stories of three "Unwinds" bound for the harvest camps for different reasons. I also liked that he doesn't shy away from the horror of what he's suggesting; I think that sometimes adults tend to underestimate what teens can handle, but Shusterman doesn't pull punches. (Neither does he wander decadently into graphic-ness for graphic-ness's sake.)
Now, this IS a YA book & thus generally PG-13, so if you reallllly like a lot of adult-style grittiness or aren't into a teen voice/point of view, Unwind might not be for you. But I'd bet there are plenty of adult sci fi thriller fans out there who would enjoy it.
Well done, Neal! Can't wait to check out the Arc of a Scyth trilogy.
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