Unwind

What if your parents could unwind you? That's the premise behind Neal Shusterman's novel "Unwind". After the HeartLand Wars, the heartland of America war over reproductive rights, ended in a stalemate a pregnancy can not be aborted BUT a child can be retroactively aborted between the ages of 13 and 18. Once you're an adult you are safe. Some kids don't want to be unwound, basically having ALL of their body parts harvested and used for spare parts, thus the story and the question do they ever really die? The adults tell the kids they'll go on living in another form as part of another person. Well, it was a GREAT read, for young adults readers and adults alike, but I've heard people say that the premise is too preposterous, as if anyone would retroactively abort their child. To these people I say, "WAKE UP"! Now I am all PRO-CHOICE and anti-death penalty but I will tell you that some people who claim to be religious and pro-life WOULD retroactively abort their child. Case in point: my partner's mother. When she found out they were gay, she told he and his LESBIAN sister that they were "going to burn in hell" and she "wished they were dead". Great fiction, sci-fi or otherwise, is great when it shows us something about being human through a fantastical story. Shusterman's premise may be fantastic but how hard is it to imagine America gone to war with itself over just such an issue? My 12 year old son and I loved this book. We highly recommend it.