Review Detail

Reader reviewed by mlecompt

After the war between the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life factions a compromise was made: it was decided that life begins at conception, but when a child is between the ages of 13 and 18 a parent or guardian can have him or her unwound. This means that almost all of the unwind's body parts will be used to replace other peoples' parts and the unwind will live on in essence.

Connor has always had a temper and causes a lot of trouble for his parents. They decide it would be easier to have him unwound. Risa lives in a state home, but she doesn't display enough talent in any area to allow her to survive budgets cuts, so she is slated to be unwound. Levi is from a very religious family that tithes ten percent of everything, including their children. He is going to unwound as a tithe. This book follows each of them as they try to escape their fates.

This book was very good, but very hard to read. It's difficult to imagine a world in which parents can send their troublesome teens away to be harvested for body parts, but Shusterman makes it real. The three main characters are compelling and they all grow a through the book. For me, the most interesting character was Levi. He is brought up believing that being tithed is a wonderful thing and he is doing it in the service of God, but when he doesn't end up at the harvest center as planned his entire world-view is thrown into question and he invents a whole new persona to cope with this loss. I highly recommend this book.