Books That Burn reviewed UnWholly by Neal Shusterman
Review of 'UnWholly' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
It’s tricky to pivot from a stand-alone book into book two of what is retroactively transformed into a series, but this manages it pretty well. The expanded scope of the dystopia’s history and new plotlines fit pretty well into what UNWIND left behind. The mere fact of the War and the Accords is given more detail and proximate causes in a way that is consistent with the earlier information even as it provides direction for the series going forward. While I like UNWIND a bit more than UNWHOLLY, I’m pretty pleased nonetheless and I look forward to finishing the whole series.
It continues several things left hanging from UNWIND but doesn't really wrap them up. It has several storylines which start here, and a few major things that are both introduced and resolved. It leaves a lot to be addressed in the future, including enough info to give a sense …
It continues several things left hanging from UNWIND but doesn't really wrap them up. It has several storylines which start here, and a few major things that are both introduced and resolved. It leaves a lot to be addressed in the future, including enough info to give a sense of a possible trajectory or next step for some of it. Some of the narrators are returning but most are new. Other than what information they have access to, I don't think the characters were very distinct. That might be because there are so many narrators that they blur together no matter how well they're written, I'm not sure. This might make sense if someone started here and didn't know about the first book, since this is starting a new arc for the series.
There are two story decision which seem strange and might be particular distressing. The first is that "storked" (involuntarily adopted) kids are more likely to be unwound. It makes sense, given the worldbuilding, and I appreciate the synergy between the shape of the dystopia and the way it affects the characters. The other strange thing is that (unless I really missed something), there's no mention of kids being unwound for being queer (or being happily queer with their parents and no intention of unwinding). While it would be nice to think that this dystopia meant to be in chronological continuity with real-world early 2000's somehow doesn't have a drop of queerphobia or homophobia anywhere... to me it leaves behind the fridge horror question of "where are all the queer kids?"
Overall I liked it, I'm intrigued by the trajectory and I'm planning to finish the series.