Unwind Series
Recently I was asked what was the creepiest book I’ve ever read. Well, my answer is it’s not just a book it’s a series I read years ago, and I find it creepy for reasons you wouldn’t think. It was unrealistic and yet very realistic at the same time. The real scare is when you will begin to question and look at the realities in our own world.
This is a dystopian, horror, thriller, and I must say that this is not a book for everyone. I think you need to be aware that this is a horror series before you go into it. It’s about ethical issues, speculative future, war, abortion, death, consciousness, human thinking and the never ending issue of life. When does life start? When does it end? And who should be allowed to end it?
In America after the Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement: The Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, a parent may choose to retroactively get rid of a child through a process called "unwinding." Unwinding ensures that the child's life doesn’t “technically” end by transplanting all the organs in the child's body to various recipients. Now a common and accepted practice in society, troublesome or unwanted teens are able to easily be unwound.
With breathtaking suspense, this book follows three teens who all become runaway Unwinds: Connor, a rebel whose parents have ordered his unwinding; Risa, a ward of the state who is to be unwound due to cost-cutting; and Lev, his parents’ tenth child whose unwinding has been planned since birth as a religious tithing.
This series is full of real questions...questions people ask today and struggle to come up with answers. There’s a lot of speculation about abortion and life choices. At first I struggled to figure out if the author was for or against abortion. Now I realize, I struggled to figure it out because the author was careful to write, with detail and precision, both sides to the story. There are always 2 sides in a story. A writer’s job is to listen to both and then write a good book about it.
Another theme that runs through the story is the phrase: “Someone else’s problem”. Stop and think about that for a second. After you read this book, you will never (I repeat, never) say that phrase again. No matter what you do, hoisting a “problem” off to someone else will never solve anything.
This is a disturbing fast paced series. It will play in your mind for quite awhile. But you know what? I think books like these are important...extremely important. If people are just fed interesting (but light) books, where they don’t have to work or think or question moral values...how will people be aware of the issues in the world today?
