Unsouled Review

If you haven’t read the first two books, this review might not make much sense. While I would love to give the backstory to unwinding, it really is its own review in itself. Unsouled is the third novel in Neal Shusterman’s Unwind dystology. Picking up right where Unwholly left off, this book follows the storylines of many of the characters that readers have come to love, and often hate.

Risa is on her own for the first time in the series. Having always had Connor and Lev, or Cam by her side. Risa has to deal with evil parts pirates trying to sell her body to the highest bidder over seas. She even runs into Cyfy, Lev’s old friend from the first novel and his Cult. The Cult of Tyler. The actions of Cyfy in previous novels have shown that parts of humans long dead are still connected, and the parts of Tyler want to be together, and have pulled together to reunite Tyler’s pieces (and I can’t wait to see how it unfolds in the final novel next year). When Risa leaves the commune she tells Cyfy that rather than letting Tyler control all their lives, they should try and focus on helping the parts of Tyler to grow up, something that even the parts of Tyler’s brain think that Risa might be right. Risa continues her journey alone, eventually ending up back in Akron with Sonia where she luckily meets back up with her friends.

Starkey is still crazy, on a murderous and terroristic rampage. He’s freeing children and teens in Harvest Camps, but still drawing the line between Unwinds and Storks, forever making a hierarchal system in the world of unwinds. Not only is he freeing those trapped in the Camps, but he is murdering and killing any adult who stands in his way, even if they were in the way accidentally. Soon, Starkey is approached by a wealthy organization who says they want to help him with his actions. Starkey, so full of himself and his ideals of terror fails to realize that he is know a pawn in the unwinding agenda. Every attack he makes is scene as terror, and only will drive the fear of feral teens harder into the hearts of the voting populous, eventually increasing the laws allowing unwinding to more than just teens, and making consent a nonissue. It is Hayden, returned from near death and Starkey’s second in command Pam that see the writing on the wall, and the next book will surely have an epic showdown between them.

Cam, the golden project of Rewinding and the Proactive Citizenry organization has been left heartbroken by Risa’s departure, but her words are still with him. He hates the project and the people that made him, and he believes that if he can take them down Risa’s heart will no longer belong to Connor, and she will be his. After pretending for weeks to still be on their side, Cam runs away trying to track down Risa and Connor. He does eventually find Connor, and while the two hate each other they do have a common enemy and a common love.

Lev and Connor have been traveling together since Lev saved Cam from the parts pirate when the Graveyard was attacked. On their journey they pick up a girl named Grace, who saved them from her crazy brother and while on the run eventually end up back at the Indian reserve where Lev once found refuge. It is on the reserve that they partner up with Cam, since for at least the moment all their goals are aligned. Many things go down while at the reserve, and eventually Lev decides to stay and help build a resistance their, leaving Cam, Connor and Grace to head toward Akron and find answers.

One of the best parts of this book was the flashbacks. Yes, there are many things readers have learned about the Heartland War and Unwinding, but this novels has many flashbacks to the people who accidentally discovered how to unwind and then their struggle and ultimate demise trying to fix the mistakes they caused. Unwind technology was suppose to help save lives, not destroy it.  Proactive Citizenry has tried their best to erase tem from the history books, and if it wasn’t for the intelligence of Risa and Connor, and a newspaper spelling mistake have lead them to believe that Sonia is part of the original unwind team that invented the technology. That is why they are all trying to get back to see the woman who gave them sanctuary so many years ago. Meeting her is not all its cracked up to be. Cam is recaptured by the Proactive Citizenry, but lies to keep the others safe, even though it means he will get his memory wiped. It is the last scene in the book that really sticks with me though. It is Sonia, rummaging through her old belongings, from a life so long ago that we see the reason behind the reason that she and her husband were taken down. There was another technology they invented, a way to forever stop unwinding, but still get the parts that people need. It was a technology the Proactive Citizenry thought they had destroyed, but a small prototype managed to escape them. Sonia thinks that it is time, with the revolution that Connor has helped to start to bring this technology into the spotlight, and stop unwinding forever.

I hate that I have to wait a year for the final book. This is one of my all time favorite series!