"Undivided" by Neal Shusterman (4th Book of Unwind Series) - Fantastic! (UPDATED)

Undivided by Neal Shusterman is the 4th and last book in the Unwind series.  The author saved the best for last!  Conner, Lev and Risa all have action-packed chapters in this book.  The pacing is really good in that you were on the edge of your seat for sure.  The last part of this book is pretty much unputdownable!  Well done, Mr. Shusterman!
(Gerard's review, 5++ stars)

(Karen's review 12/18/17, 5 stars:)
UnDivided by Neal Shusterman did not disappoint at all!  I LOVED it and what a fantastic finish to a thrilling series with lots of ups and downs and twists and turns!  This story is about friendship, betrayal, teamwork, sacrifice and making a difference.  It has humor, a bit of romance, lots of adventure, some very creepy things, revenge, some fighting, justice, lots of escaping and just extremely interesting characters.  The teens in this series are very brave, smart and creative!  The ending is great!

WOW!  I loved this book.  After the last one, UnSouled, I didn't think this series could get any better, but it did!  This book had my emotions covering the spectrum, from humor, to sadness, to happiness, to relief, to shock to tears of joy!  I liked how I felt the characters were real and got drawn into their story lines.  This would be a great series for a book club because there is so much to discuss and so many characters to analyze.  It was a very thought-provoking series that I wanted to read straight through.

Teaser from page 14:  "There isn't one single thing that will end unwinding," she tells them.  "It will take a hodgpodge of random events that come together in just the right way and at just the right time to remind society it's got a conscience." 



SPOILER ALERT--skip this unless you have read this book:  In this book, Connor and Grace make it to Sonia's where he and Risa are reunited and discover an invention that Sonia's husband had been working on that can manufacture human parts!  It gives them all hope that an end to unwinding is possible!  Lev does what he can to get the Indian reservation to publicly announce that it is a sanctuary for AWOLS.  Hayden, Bam and Jeeves team up to overthrow Starkey and Hayden begins podcasting again against unwinding.  Argent is betrayed by Nelson and switches sides to help Connor and Risa.  Cam brings down Roberta and the Proactive Citizenry operation all by himself.  The ending was so touching when Conner was finally reunited with his family!


Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. To find books on a specific topic, scroll to the bottom and click on the topic you want. Happy Reading!

"Scythe" (Arc of a Scythe #1) by Neal Shusterman Was Even Better Than We Expected

In Scythe by Neal Shusterman, there is no war, no disease, and nobody goes hungry in the world.  The only problem is overpopulation!  That is where being a scythe comes into play.  You fix that problem.  Citra and Rowan are both picked to try to be a scythe, but do not want any part of it!  However, to decline is not in their best interest.

This book was way better than I thought it would be.  Citra and Rowan are both really good.  The story flows well and the twists and turns are well done to say the least!  Do not miss this one--it's a must read!  I look forward to book 2.
(Gerard's review 10/30/17, 5++ stars)

Teaser from page 29:  But a perfect world needs no improvement.  Like most everything else we do, education, from grade school through the highest of universities, is just a way to keep us busy.

We both also liked Unwind by this author too and also recommend that one.


(Karen's review, 5 stars:  LOVED THIS BOOK!  SO GLAD I READ IT!)
Scythe by Neal Shusterman is about a utopia future where humanity has overcome disease, aging, crime, and natural death.  Government has been replaced with the Thunderhead that makes sure everyone in the world has what they need.  It watches everything that happens and stores people's memories.  (Anyway, guess we'll find out more about the Thunderhead in book two.)  People can still get hurt, but what normally would kill someone like falling 12 stories from a window now makes them "deadish."  They can be taken to a revival center where they get good as new in just 2-3 days and get delicious ice cream when they wake up.  Since there is a problem of overpopulation, a special group called Scythes do the service of "gleaning" people on a random basis.  Gleaning is just a nice word for legalized killing.  The Scythdom have their own set of laws they must follow.  When Citra and Rowan are chosen by Scythe Faraday to become his apprentices on the road to becoming a scythe, both reluctantly accept for different reasons.  Scythes have power not only to take life, but also to grant immunity from being gleaned to people and Scythe's families have immunity as long as the Scythe lives.

I was very intrigued by this book.  It is well written and very thought provoking with several twists tossed in that really shocked me!  I loved this book so much, I think I will actually re-read it just to make sure I didn't miss anything.  Citra and Rowan come from very different backgrounds but are both smart, moral and find themselves in difficult situations.  I also liked all the humor, some of which made me actually laugh out loud, and really cool things in this book like being able to "turn the corner" and go back to being any age you want, having years named after animals, and having healing nanites so wounds can heal themselves.  I highly recommend this to older teens or adults who like thought provoking books about the future.  This is one of my top 2 favorites of the year, the other being Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst.  


SPOILER ALERT - STOP HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T YET READ THIS BOOK.  IF YOU HAVE, I'D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS ON THESE QUESTIONS:

(1)  Exactly how did Scythe Faraday fake his own death and how did Scythe Curie know about it?

(2)  Why did Citra's fingers turn really cold when Scythe Faraday let her try on his ring, but when Scythe Goddard gave his ring to Rowan to take over giving immunity to the loved ones of those they gleaned, nothing happened.  Nor did anything happen when Rowan put it on after decapitating Scythe Goddard (which I really liked by the way).  I thought it was funny he put it in the dirty water bowl at the monastery.

(3)  I thought the ending was fantastic and was so happy it didn't end with a cliffhanger as to which one was chosen or stop before knowing if the winner gleaned the loser.  What did you think about the ending?