Rachael Cantu

Imagine living in a world where abortion was illegal until the age of thirteen. In the book, Unwind by Neal Shusterman, this imaginary scenario turns into a real issue for teens in America. If you were a disobedient kid or an extra expense, then your parents/caretakers could get rid of you by just signing a form to have you unwound. Unwinding is a three hour long procedure where each part of a teenager’s body is taken out to use for someone else who needs it. Unwind is set in the far future in the United States of America. A civil war has been fought called the “Heartland War” by two sides. The sides were pro-life and pro-choice fighting over whether abortion should be legal or not. In the end, the two sides agreed that unwinding was a good compromise and the Heartland War was over. Obviously, the government would be the antagonist because they are what made unwinding legal. There is more than one protagonist in the book, though. They are Risa and Connor, and eventually Lev ends up being one too. Risa had lived in a state home and Connor in a real family when each of them found out they were to be unwound. Connor was a trouble-maker that his parents wanted to get rid of, while Risa was an extra expense that the state home couldn’t afford anymore. Each of them knew they were to be unwound soon and wanted to do something about it. Connor had snuck out, while Risa was on her way to harvest camp on a bus. Connor had been on the run all night when he got caught in the back of…

It felt like I had found my twin that felt and knew everything about me. I had never opened myself up like that before and it felt like I could fly because it was so freeing. Later that month, Rachael took me to Starbucks to meet her best friends and the first thing words they uttered were “Well hello! It’s a pleasure to meet you!”, and hearing all of these strangers say this made my anxiety kick in so I quietly mumbled “hi it’s nice to meet you too”. However, once I began to converse and play…