Title: UnDivided
Author: Neal Shusterman
Publisher/Year:  Simon & Schuster 11/1/0/15
Length:   389 Pages
Series:  Unwind Dystology #4

Overview

Teens control the fate of America in the fourth and final book in the New York Times bestselling Unwind dystology by Neal Shusterman that Horn Book Magazine calls “ambitious, insightful, and devastating—a fitting conclusion to a provocative series.”

Proactive Citizenry, the company that created Cam from the parts of unwound teens, has a plan: to mass produce rewound teens like Cam for military purposes. And below the surface of that horror lies another shocking level of intrigue: Proactive Citizenry has been suppressing technology that could make unwinding completely unnecessary. As Conner, Risa, and Lev uncover these startling secrets, enraged teens begin to march on Washington to demand justice and a better future.

But more trouble is brewing. Starkey’s group of storked teens is growing more powerful and militant with each new recruit. And if they have their way, they’ll burn the harvest camps to the ground and put every adult in them before a firing squad—which could destroy any chance America has for a peaceful future.

My Thoughts

We’ve been with this series for some time now, with so much going on with each of the characters, that personally i was interested most in seeing how everything was going to end, and how they were potentially going to intertwine.  What we get is a really nicely done ending and conclusion of this saga that leaves no question as to who’s alive and not, who’s seeing success and who’s together with their fated person.

As you recall from the past several books, we get each chapter in another person’s POV and that continues here.  What it gives us is an opportunity to think about what’s going to happen next to our favorites since EVERYONE is tied to one another.  It’s amazing to be frank.

We see Connor and Risa having found Sonia and trying to figure out what the secret technology was that her husband created, and how they can bring it to the world to hopefully end unwinding.  We see that Grace is still the idiot savante and continues to give us some of the most amazing ideas when no one else thinks clearly.  Then there’s Cam, the other part of the love triangle, who’s been taken back into the hands of PC, and his mind has been altered so that he can’t think of Risa at all.

Lev continues to baffle me.  One never knows exactly what his story is going to be, but i think that where we see it go is a place that makes everyone proud.  he’s trying to do right by the boy that befriended him on the Rez, all the while trying to forward Connor’s goal.

Starkey – well what to say about him.  he’s the one that continues to gain power, but what he’s not smart enough to know or think about is who is behind this power that’s being given to him and what’s the true end game.

Throughout this story, we have a lot of people playing sides, and wondering if they are truly playing the side that they are on.  I think that’s one of the interesting bits of this – because we see that allegiances are made out of necessity but where they evolve to from there becomes the true hook to the story.

What’s hard for me to digest here is what the government and PC are doing – they are putting all this advertising or propaganda out there to the public to get them to buy into the tech that they have for unwinding.  All of course to help their bottom line, but if you think about how easily it seems that they’re able to convince the public that it’s what they want – that makes you wonder for our own society if things like that are really likely to happen, and i think that it’s probably a big yes.  sad right?

There’s a nice lesson here in this story – trust, friendship and love.  Where we see success come through at all is when the right people create bonds of trust and friendship and work together to make change.  They’ve said over and over that one person or one thing cannot overcome what’s going on, but instead if they work together for progress, then things will happen.  That’s the sentiment that we carry through this book, and for those who are able to actually buy into that, well, those are the ones that we remember when it all ends.

All in all a really great series, and i’m glad that i found it.  I feel like our author – Mr Shustermann had a really great task ahead of him with this story, but the way that it was organized and the flow of it all really kept things incredibly interesting and now i need to find something else to fill this gap that i have now that i’m done.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone!