When reading the Unwind series, I needed about 2 weeks of recovery time between each book. You might be wondering, why? What about these books demands recovery time? The best synopsis of these books I can give is this: following a war over abortion, the solution was to ban the practice entirely. But, parents can now choose to send their child away at the age of 13 to be “unwound”, and used for body parts to “sustain” other people. Trippy, right? Each book explored new ramifications of the bill (named the “Bill of Life”), and the ultimate downfall of the system put in place.
The series follows Connor, Risa, and Lev (among some other characters). Connor is a troublesome child whose parents are sending him to be unwound, and to avoid this, he runs away and becomes an ‘AWOL’ individual, aka a criminal. Risa has been a ward of the state since birth, which is a rarity. If parents don’t want their children, they typically “stork” them and place the baby on another family’s doorstep, which the parents have to accept. Lev is quite the opposite, raised to believe he is a “divine sacrifice”. Lev believed being unwound is a “higher calling” and looks forward to the process. All three kids end up together by MANY messed-up circumstances, and band together after all of them are labeled criminals for escaping.
The first book follows them being chased by various villains, including “poachers”, who sell AWOL children to black market surgical empires, who use the children for body parts, catering to high-end and cosmetic-based clientele. I highly recommend giving the series a read, as the characters are grounded and are easy to root for.