Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Now that Kate's birthday is past, I can finally get down to clarifying a thought about Unwind, which I actually finished reading almost a week ago. In truth, that would be clarifying a lot of thoughts, because as Wendy (who of course told me about this book) said I would, I have a lots of thoughts swirling around about this story. "There's a lot of ins, a lot of outs. A lot of strands in the old Duder's head..."

I talked to my mom a bit about it, which helped me pull some stuff together in my mind, because my mom does juvenile justice social work. Knowing her and the work she does and the stories she's told me, I know that as bizarre as this story seems to be, parents do just throw their kids away sometimes, and for the lamest of reasons. And the state is overburdened taking care of rejected, unloved kids. And that's reality as of right now, not some grim future world of fiction.

Shusterman's main point in all this seems to be to strike some philosophical middle ground in the war over abortion, but he throws in so many other points as well (anarchy, personal responsibility vs. personal freedom, the nature of consciousness, the position of teenagers in our society, religious extremism, etc.) that you could discuss this book endlessly. I can definitely see how this story would strike a powerful chord in the minds of teens. If you want to get a teenager you know reading, this book would do it. On top of all that, it's fast-paced and exciting. That's a powerful combo.

Primarily, I appreciate a YA writer making the case for seeing all sides of an issue. I think a lot of stories marketed to kids are propagandistic. They attempt to teach something and in the process beat kids over the heads with their message. Shusterman seems to be saying, "look at all of these ideas and think about what the logical conclusions and consequences would be." That is a valuable message for anybody these days. We harp and harp about how we think things ought to be, but there doesn't seem to be enough call for stopping to think things out to their end result. How is this going to play out on the ground? In the book, for instance, a law allowing people to secretly leave their unwanted newborns on the doorsteps of others, thereby passing the legal responsibility on to the person who owns the doorstep, actually ends up inducing people to pass babies from door to door night after night until they are too weak to survive. A slow, painful death is not more humane and holy than life never lived. So many things in this world are good in their inception and intention and bad in their execution; you have to consider the consequences. That is a powerful teaching point all by itself.

On a lighter note, I had to laugh at the "romance" portion of the plot, which I guess the author felt was a necessity to draw in the ladies. It seems so obviously written by a man. Basically, it reads like: I like you. Me too. They kiss. HA!