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A review by kelsey_thereader
UnWholly by Neal Shusterman
4.0
I may come back and add more to this review later, but wanted to write down some thoughts while they are fresh. I gave this book 4 stars because it is thought-provoking and socially relevant, as well as suspenseful and multi-layered. It's the second book in the [b:Unwind|764347|Unwind (Unwind, #1)|Neal Shusterman|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1297677706s/764347.jpg|750423] trilogy, and continues to follow the lives of Connor, Risa, and Lev; as well as a few new faces. Connor is the reluctant leader of the Graveyard, a safe haven for escaped AWOLs like himself, while Risa is coming to terms with her disability (as a result of the Happy Jack clapper bombing). Lev is in the hands of the Juvenile Authority after he decided not to clap, performing community service while under house arrest. All of their worlds are about to get much, much more complicated. This novel delves deeper into some of the already-deep questions posed in Unwind: What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be human? What is a soul? Is it morally right to sacrifice one individual for the sake of many? It also explores the origins of unwinding and the mysterious organization "behind it all," Proactive Citizenry.
I have a hard time deciding whether I like the narrative format of this book. It switches between many perspectives, a technique that certainly allows for suspense and foreshadowing (for example, at one point we see Risa, from another character's perspective, doing something that doesn't really make sense but we can't find out what's really going on until it switches back to her perspective a couple chapters later). Many times I found it neat to be seeing through the eyes of very minor characters (or not even characters at all), while other times I found it to be confusing and a bit of a challenge to keep everyone's stories straight. As all these different perspectives and people converge closer and closer to one another, however, I couldn't help but be helplessly drawn in and hooked to this story.
The best things about this book and this series as a whole:
1) Romance takes a back seat to social issues. Thank you! This doesn't mean there isn't any romance, but it's on the sidelines and just a small piece of the bigger puzzle these kids are trying to solve.
2) It makes me think. There is no clear-cut answer here, which, in a way, makes these books scarier than their dystopian counterparts (think Hunger Games or Divergent, which I also love by the way). This is a future that could happen. In some less-extreme ways, it is happening right now.
All in all, one of the better dystopian series out there, for sure.
I have a hard time deciding whether I like the narrative format of this book. It switches between many perspectives, a technique that certainly allows for suspense and foreshadowing (for example, at one point we see Risa, from another character's perspective, doing something that doesn't really make sense but we can't find out what's really going on until it switches back to her perspective a couple chapters later). Many times I found it neat to be seeing through the eyes of very minor characters (or not even characters at all), while other times I found it to be confusing and a bit of a challenge to keep everyone's stories straight. As all these different perspectives and people converge closer and closer to one another, however, I couldn't help but be helplessly drawn in and hooked to this story.
The best things about this book and this series as a whole:
1) Romance takes a back seat to social issues. Thank you! This doesn't mean there isn't any romance, but it's on the sidelines and just a small piece of the bigger puzzle these kids are trying to solve.
2) It makes me think. There is no clear-cut answer here, which, in a way, makes these books scarier than their dystopian counterparts (think Hunger Games or Divergent, which I also love by the way). This is a future that could happen. In some less-extreme ways, it is happening right now.
All in all, one of the better dystopian series out there, for sure.