Undivided (The Unwind Series)

If you aren't reading Neil Shusterman, you should be. His Unwind series may be one of the best current YA stories addressing significant moral and social issues in a way that leads readers toward the truth. This review will cover the final book, Undivided. If you are not familiar with the series, it may be helpful to read some observations about the previous books.

Unwind
"Unwind is compelling. It’s disturbing. It makes the moral heart of our culture’s debate about the aforementioned issues unavoidable. It's one thing to write academic papers about post-birth abortion; it's quite another to vicariously experience the murder of innocent people deemed unworthy of life. The reader can't help but cringe at the empty deception in defense of Unwinding while cheering those who fight to stop it. Though Shusterman intended to take a neutral approach by highlighting hypocrisy on all sides, the story sends a clear message about the value of human life." 

UnWholly
"There was far more to UnWholly than its discussion of the soul and personal identity. Risa and Conner show maturity and respect in their relationship. An ongoing story about rescued Tithes gives plenty of opportunity to analyze both the proper use and improper abuse of religion. And there is an achingly beautiful moment of forgiveness between two teens who have been horribly damaged by life. It may have been the best moment in a great book.But as much as I like his series for all those things, I am more impressed with Shusterman's ability to starkly reveal the implications of living in a culture that has forgotten what it means to be human."

UnSouled

Once again, Mr. Shusterman has reminded us of a number of issues that are just too important to ignore.  When does life begin? What does it means to be human? What happens when we view people as property or things? Are we just parts, or is there a unifying soulishness to our nature? Should scientists do things just because they can, or is there a should that needs to be part of the discussion? In a world that increasingly traffics in flesh (in areas such as pornography, the sex slave trade, savior siblings, and medical experiments on aborted babies), any reminder of the value of humanity is a good one." 

UnDivided
In Undivided, Mr. Shusterman brings this series to a close. Once again, he addresses serious issues in a thought-provoking and accessible way.

Cutting The Baby In Half: A Review of Neal Shusterman's "Unwind"

“In a perfect world mothers would all want their babies, and strangers would open up their homes to the unloved. In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn’t a perfect world.”

To help us better understand the entertainment shaping today's youth, I offer my latest review of books effecting a primarily YA audience. My goal is not to critique the art form as much as look at the worldview in the story.

This review will feature Unwind, the first book in an unfolding trilogy by Neal Shusterman that has justifiably earned an unbelievable amount of critical acclaim. It's set in a dystopic culture that has embraced the killing of innocent human life for the greater good. As Shusterman so adeptly shows, it's neither great nor good.
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In the not-so-distant future, the conflict over abortion has worsened. The pro-life crowd is killing doctors at a regular clip; the pro-choice crowd is flaunting their freedom by getting pregnant just to sell fetal tissue. The inevitable war fractures the country and threatens to topple the nation.

The two sides reach a compromise: there will be no more abortion, but parents can have the government Unwind their children when they turn 13. Unwinding is a process made possible by a recent medical breakthrough called neurografting, in which every part of a human can be detached and placed into another human. Since all the parts of the Unwound person are still alive, that person is still alive in some sense – or at least that’s how the argument goes. Abortion without death. All the pleasure of choice with none of the burden of responsibility. It's all very tidy.

It was meant to be a Swiftian compromise designed to shock both parties into sanity, a cultural version of King Solomon's suggestion that two mothers fighting over a baby should cut it in half. In the Biblical story, the real mother begs Solomon to spare the life of the child and give her baby to the other woman - which was exactly the outcome Solomon anticipated. Shusterman stated in an interview with The Trades that he wanted to look at what would happen if a baby's life was on the line and neither side flinched.

“When I go and speak at schools, one of the first things I talk about is the King Solomon story -- how the two women are fighting over the baby, and how Solomon proposes the idea of cutting the baby in half. What if one of those women didn't let go? What if the two sides were so entrenched in their positions that they would rather see the baby cut in half than ever compromise? Unwind is what happens when society decides to cut the baby in half -- figuratively and literally.” 

This kind of horror must be hidden behind a wall of ideology and propaganda. As the kids targeted for Unwinding find out about their doom, they reflexively repeat the mantra that has been droned to the damned: “I’d rather be partly great than entirely useless.”