Unwholly by Neal Shusterman

by Mrs. Stanley's Bookshelf

Posted on November 6, 2012

When I first started reading books by John Green, I realized that he was one of the best new young adult authors that I had come across in a long while.  Likewise, I feel that Neal Shusterman has earned that label as well.  Shusterman's book Unwind, was thought-provoking without trying to beat the reader over the head with a message.  Basically, he put his story out there and let the reader figure out right from wrong on his or her own, which is what we should all hope for from a good book.  No one wants a book that repeatedly tells the reader what to think or feel.  Therefore, I really looked forward to seeing how Shusterman carried this over into the sequel to Unwind, in Unwholly, and I am pleased to say that I wasn't disappointed.

Unwholly brings back all of the characters that the reader loved in the first book, while also introducing more characters.  Through the course of the novel, I got to see our main characters from the first book grow and make a difference.  I also found that some of the new characters were heroes in their own right, while others were the worst of what the world has to offer.    At the beginning, Connor and Risa are still at the Graveyard taking care of the operation to save as many unwinds as possible.  Connor is reluctantly in charge, and he is still trying to come to terms that one of his arms once belonged to Roland.  Risa is still in a wheelchair since she refused a spine replacement from an unwind.  Away from the Graveyard, Lev is under house arrest for his part in the attack on Happy Jack, but he is safe from unwinding because of the damage he sustained from becoming a clapper.  While the attack on Happy Jack Harvest camp brought the issue of unwinding more prominently to the public's attention, it has not been enough.  Seventeen year olds are now safe from unwinding, but that just causes a shortage of parts and an increase in parts pirates, unscrupulous people who hunt down teenagers to be unwound. 

We meet three new main characters who help shape the course of the story.  Miracolina is a tithe like Lev.  She wants nothing more than to give her life to be unwound, but when she is "saved" by a group of resistance workers, she learns more about herself.  We also meet Cam, who is a totally new being.  He has been created wholly from the parts of unwound teenagers.  So now, not only are they unwinding teenagers for spare parts, but now they are trying to create perfect life from those parts.  Finally, there is Starkey.  Starkey was a storked baby who grew to be a troubled teenager.  He never felt like he belonged and he despises the way people treat storked children.  When he learns he is set to be unwound, he escapes and ends up at the Graveyard, where he starts to cultivate his own faction of storks.