Unwind (Unwind, #1)

first off I want to say that I didn't think i was going to like this book at all but I was so wrong!

Unwind by by Neal Shusterman is based on the premise that there is a war in the U.S. between the pro-choice advocates and the pro-life advocates. The outcome of the war leads to a crazy compromise: retroactive abortions, which means that a child is protected until he or she is 13, at which point the parents can choose to have the child “unwound.” Being unwound means that the child harvested for all of the parts and organs, which will then “live on” in other people. The children who are to be unwound are called “unwinds,” and if they try to escapse they are hunted down mercilessly by the “juvie cops” because the unwinds' harvested parts are big business. There are three main types of unwinds. Some are unwinds because their parents can't cope with their behavior any more, some are unwinds because they are orphans and the state can't afford to support them any more, and some are unwinds because they are “tithes” to the church or religion. Of course, there are exceptions, such as the boy whose parents got divorced and couldn't come to a custody decision, so they decided to have him unwound so that neither would have to deal with the other getting custody of him. One of each of these main types of unwinds is, of course, a main character in this book: Connor the troublemaker, Risa the orphan, and Lev the tithe. They all meet when both Connor and Risa, escape, coincidentally, at the same time, knowing that if they can survive until their 18th birthday they will be safe because they will be adults. When they escape, however, Connor unintentionally drags brainwashed Lev along with them. Their escape is a harrowing one with many close, and even closer, calls as they try to find somewhere to hide until their 18th birthdays.

I liked the book, but it was very disturbing -