Unwind (Neal Shusterman) -- Pages 1-70.

The book Unwind has been a very interesting read so far. This book is full of action from the start, intense character development, and a deep story. In my first blog post, I will focus on the character development of the three main characters in the novel, Connor, Risa, and Lev. Connor has always been a kind of troubled teen. He is always getting into trouble with the law as well as his parents. His parents decided to have him unwound because of this behavior. Connor is conflicted because he doesn't know if he thinks he deserves this or if he thinks that this is ridiculous. Connor is a very straight forward character because the author uses a lot of indirect characterization to describe Connor. I can't really tell if he is a good kid or a bad kid. I'm quite interested to see how Connor develops more through out this story. Risa is in a completely different situation then Connor is because she is almost being "evicted" from her life. She is a ward of the state and is a very talented piano player at a musical charter school. To make room at this school, the state has decided to unwind the students who are wards of the state. Risa is a fairly interesting character because she isn't the "rebel type" when she is at the school and just living a normal life, but as soon as she finds out she is being unwound she suddenly lives with an instinct for survival. When she is being transported to the Unwind camp the bus gets into an accident and she says, "The system might have a million contingencies for state wards trying to screw with things, but they don't have a plan of action for dealing with an accident. For the next dew seconds, all bets are off" (Shusterman 27). Risa is described using a lot of direct characterization. The author shows her emotions and her feelings with describing them directly as oppose to vaguely like the author does with Connor. Risa should be a fairly interesting character to watch as this story goes on. The final character we learn about in this section of the book is Lev. Lev was born to be Unwound. He is his parents tenth child and they decided before he was born that he would be Unwound at age 13. Lev is very religious and believes that god has a plan for him no matter what happens when he is Unwound. He is a pretty complex character in that he is having many different feelings about his unwinding. He is described using a lot of direct characterization because he is not afraid to speak his feelings and be vocal about his situation. He is probably the most interesting character I want to watch as this story goes on. This has been a very interesting story so far and I can't wait to see where it goes!