Unwind
I was first introduced to Unwind a couple of weeks ago, when a blogger shared a Youtube video on Twitter. It was one of the most difficult videos I have ever watched - although only 5 minutes long, it showed a scene made for a MainStay Productions, detailing what happens at the Unwinding. Do not watch this if you're easily scared, I love horror movies but at the end of this I was shaking and crying, going through a mini panic attack. It really stuck in my head.Unwind, the book that it, didn't stick quite as much. Of course, I saw the video first and I have read a little of Neal's other book, Everlost, so I knew that the story wouldn't quite live up the video and be a bit silly in places. But I was still a little disappointed. The story is great, lots of twists and turns that I wasn't expecting, hard hitting storylines but it just felt a little too Middle Grade at times. Plot lines that were a little TOO silly to be believable, to start with. I believe a true Dystopia is something you can picture happening and this was clearly a very odd other dimension. Full of crazy people. And airplane scrap yards. Didn't affect me at all.
It was fun finding the Christian references in this. The biggest one was Lev and it was interesting to see his family's reasoning for him being a Tithe and how the interpreted the Bible to fit around this really bizarre idea the world has. King Solomon was touched upon briefly, slightly hidden and so was Moses. But less hidden.
As for the sequels, are they needed? I quite enjoyed the ending and it would be interesting to see what happens next but I didn't feel that there was much in the way of a cliffhanger and I feel that I would be perfectly content to leave it at that.