Unwind

Dystopian books are my favorite, and as long as we are studying young adult literature books, they always will be. Unwind, by Neal Shusterman, addresses a theme head on from the beginning of the novel, pro-life and pro-choice. What makes this interesting is how he wrote this book to relate to young adolescents that me be experiencing some of these issues. However, let me give a quick background of the story and why I happened to love it.

            Considering this book is quite difficult to summarize, bare with me, since you have read the book yourselves (I hope). Unwinding is a process for unwanted teenagers to be disassembled or transplanted before the age of eighteen. However, whether or not he or she is “unwinded,” it is guaranteed that he or she will live on, just in a disassembled state. However, the process of unwinding happens throughout the book, and is seen as quite a controversy after a second world war, The Heartland War. To not spoil any endings, I will end it at that. However, I just wanted to emphasize on the disagreement between pro-life and pro-choice, or the two sides of the Heartland War.

            Pro-life and pro-choice is clearly the theme that needs to be addressed within this book. What made this book interesting was the author’s ability to hide or cover his views upon the modern term of abortion. In fact, the last few lines within the book reveal the authors thoughts through the main character, Connor. Shusterman wrote, “We have a right to our lives....We have a right to choose what happens to our bodies....We deserve to live in a world where both those things are possible.” Though I believe this book would be interesting to teach in a high school classroom, I would find it quite difficult to teach as well considering you aren’t supposed to be bias towards your view on modern issues, or at least I think so. With that being said, leaving the book to persuade readers doesn’t really do anything either, especially after those last lines. In a sense, it left the readers of the pro-life or pro-choice debate wondering.

            Another concept I want to discuss is the character development. One thing I want to discuss within class is the way in which characters (and readers!) are positioned to wonder what the term life means. For example, is unwinding seen as murder, or not? Characters within the book seem to develop because they don’t believe its murder based upon their consciousness. After furthering my knowledge on this book, I found a great question based upon the book that may also be touched on in class. Is consciousness the definitive element that makes up life? 

            Like I mentioned above, I love dystopian novels, which is why it is very easy for me to rate this book an A. However, not only do I love it for its dystopian theme, but also the way the author approached such a difficult issue. Though I think this book is fantastic, sometimes I feel like as teachers it is so difficult to teach these tough issues in class. However, whether or not they are difficult to teach, I do not believe that they should be ignored!