Full Tilt And Unwind: A Literary Analysis

Neal Shusterman has written many heart-touching and award-winning books, and over time, has become one of the most influential authors of our generation. Two of his books were Full Tilt and Unwind. To describe Full Tilt quite briefly, the story was about a teen boy named Blake, who traveled to a carnival in another dimension to save his younger brother, Quinn. To save him, Blake had to get through seven twisted rides, each of which dealt with one of his many fears. On the other hand, Unwind is about three teenagers, Connor, Risa, and Lev, who all manage to cross paths on their ways to get Unwound. Unwinding is the process of being taken apart piece by piece and having your parts given to other people in need. Together, they escape the unwinding …show more content…
Two traits that can be found in his books are his ability to make the characters relatable and the way he uses metaphors and similes in his writing to give a better understanding of a situation. These two skills, along with many others, are the reason why Neal Shusterman is successful at writing such eye-opening and wonderful stories for young adults.

One skill very strongly represented in both Unwind and Full Tilt is Shusterman’s ability to create relatable characters. For example, in Full Tilt, Maggie looked in the mirror and said, “Tell me the truth, do I look fat to you?”(page 2). Many people are plagued by their body image at least once in their teenage lives, and Neal Shusterman captured a realistic moment in which that happened to a young, teenage girl. Another example of his ability to create relatable characters was in Unwind, when Connor’s girlfriend at the time, Arianna, didn’t want to runaway with him. She said, “My sister’s getting married, and you know she picked me to be the maid of honor. And then there’s school… I want to, I really, really want to [runaway]… but I can’t.” Then, Connor said, “Running away is the only …show more content…
He knows how to perfectly depict a scene by using understandable examples of figurative language. He also has mastered the art of creating relatable characters, which really makes his crazy plot lines believable. Besides the two skills already mentioned, there are plenty more valuable fingerprints that can be found in Neal Shusterman’s writing. He always makes sure to sprinkle a little allusion into his stories, especially in Full Tilt. One other skill Shusterman possesses is to leave subtle hints throughout his story and be able to tie them all together in the ending. All of these factors and skills found in personalized fingerprints left in each one of Neal Shusterman’s novels contribute to his many achievements and great writing of young adult