Ellen Allen Writes

The hype on this one is large indeed (“Before the Hunger Games came…”) and the number of people who love this book even larger (it’s running a 4.2 average on goodreads with over 100,000 reviews). So, pretty impressive. I think there’s even a movie in the pipeline…

Unwind by Neal Shusterman is a dystopian novel set in the future after wars are fought over reproductive rights. It forces the world (i.e. the US) to decide that all children are sacred (i.e. none can be terminated) until age 13-18 at which point they can be “unwound”, i.e. their organs may be harvested into other people’s bodies. It’s a brilliantly bonkers premise (and the reason why I love YA plots where I can completely suspend disbelief) and very well written in the sense that it’s pacy and gripping; it’s a great example of how to write YA page-turners. That said, whilst I raced through it, the characters felt very one-dimensional, everything is over simplistic and I just felt like it could have been a little deeper. But then, I’m not a Young Adult!

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