May 2011 - Jefferson County Public Schools

Unwind By: Neal Shusterman.
Letitia Brown
pic
Simon & Schuster New York 335 pps.
Beep...Beep...Beep…fills
his ears, along with people in scrubs,
masks, and gloves surrounding
him. All of a sudden, a bright light from
a distance gets closer and closer
towards him. Roland looks over to see
many wires attached to his
body, and before he knows it… he
blacks out.
The story, Unwind, by Neal
Shusterman, is truly one of a kind. No
other book that I have read can
compare to this. The author of this story
Neal Shusterman is very unique
in his own special way. He is very
popular and has other books, as
well; EverWild, EverLost, Bruiser, Red
Rider’s Hood, What Daddy Did. As a screen and TV writer, Neal has written for the "Goosebumps" and
“Animorphs” TV series, and wrote the Disney Channel Original Movie, “Pixel Perfect”. He is a very
inspirational author and is sure to be guaranteed to have more eye catching books/novels.
Of course, in every story there conflicts involved. One conflict in this story would have to be the
argument that occurred between Roland and Connor. Connor became convinced that Roland was trying
to kill him because of how Roland was trying to replace Connor’s spot on the airplane. What makes this
such a big deal is that Connor had originally planned to be in that position on the plane since there was a
plan between him and the pilot to kill all the unwinds. Roland trying to take his spot made it a big deal
for the both of them, which eventually led to a fight.
The book was set in the future and tells about how parents can not abort their newborn, but they
can do so they choose to unwind their children once they reach the ages of 13-18. What makes the story
more suspenseful is that 3 teenagers work together to try to escape and avoid being unwound. Their
journey had a few twists and kinks. But lets’ not spoil it. You can read and find out yourself. There’s
drama, drama, and more drama between characters. The book lets you see everyone’s thoughts, so you
get a look at their perspective on what’s happening. It shows the difficulties they have to face in order to
survive. Once they reach the end, there’s no where else to run.
One strength of the book would have to be the good imagery the author provided for the reader.
There was a moment in the book where one of the surgeons in the camp took a scalpel and sliced it right
into Roland’s leg. You see half of a male teenager’s body laying down on a metal platform with nothing
else at the end. The intense description of this scene was very easy to imagine in the reader’s mind. Not
all authors provide that use of imagery.
Another strength of this book would have to be the remarkable use of dialogue. Usually, dialogue
would be not as exciting, but, in this case, dialogue played a very important role in the story. One
conversation led to another, and it became more and more dramatic as the story continued. It’s not the
common typical dialogue that you would normally expect in most fiction stories. The dialogue also
helped the reader understand more about the situations that were happening.
Another strength is most definitely the foreshadowing of the story. The foreshadowing led you on as
you flipped page by page. The dialogue also assisted in the building of suspense as well. I believe that
the purpose of the suspense was to mainly reach out to the readers and keep them more interested in
finishing the story, instead of, like most books, being boring and causing teen readers to give up and put
the book down.
One final strength that I came across while reading was that the author uses descriptive detailing.
Every sentence he writes is so in depth and he pulls in the reader with intriguing action. It was easy to
comprehend and simple to grasp. Every bit of detail followed up with a great image in my mind, and
that’s what I like to see in books.