Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Shusterman, N. (2007). Unwind. New York: Simon & Schuster
Books for Young Readers.
I’ve always been fascinated by science fiction that envisions a fantasy world that could be true, such as Harry Turtledove’s alternate histories. That was what attracted me to Neal Shusterman’s Unwind. I was curious to see how he would depict the United States after a Second Civil War.
I thought the initial premise was possible. When one considers the real-life violence that the abortion debate has already fostered in the form of murders of doctors and bombings of pro-life clinics, I could imagine this country going to war over this issue. But from then on, I simply could not accept the premise upon which the rest of the story is based. In our present world where simple spankings are considered tantamount to child abuse, why would parents of the near future accept having their children killed for their body parts? If pro-life advocates oppose killing a child after conception, why would they accept a compromise that allows that same child to be killed after adolescence?
I was also disappointed that this story once again has teenagers running from adult government agents who are trying to capture them. This same setting keeps coming up in so many books that it has become a literary cliché. I enjoyed the writing style and the character depictions in Unwind, but I just couldn’t buy into the story at all.
Google Images: shopping.com
No comments:
Post a Comment