Recommended Age:
14
+
Ideal for independent readers who enjoy suspenseful, fast-paced, and character-driven dystopian adventures.
About the Book
In a future America where a second civil war was ended by an agreement allowing parents to have unwanted teenagers retroactively 'unwound'—their body parts harvested for others while the law maintains they are technically still alive—three teens on the run from the unwinding process must find a way to survive. A viscerally disturbing and philosophically provocative YA dystopian novel. One of Shusterman's most acclaimed works.
Content Ratings
💡
Intense Themes
The book is a sustained examination of bodily autonomy, the definition of life and death, the use of political compromise to justify atrocity, and what young people are owed by the society that created them.
⚔️
High Violence
The book's most disturbing sequence depicts the unwinding procedure from a teenager's perspective in a way that is horrifying without being graphically gory. Additional violence from religious extremists and chase sequences is also present.
