UnWholly

A few years ago I read my first dystopian book (Unwind) and it really blew my mind.
The world settling, the characters, the storyline, everything was perfect and in that moment I wished for the book to be part of a series.

My wish came true:  a sequel (for one of the most emotional stories) finally found its way to my door and I was able to enjoy once more the terrifying world of unwinding.
Truthfully, I don’t think this story needed a sequel, but of course I did enjoy every single word.

THE VERY GOOD

♥ The amazing world building:
It is horrifying, it will disgust you, it will give you goose-bumps and nightmares.. but you will love it.
This is a sick pleasure, my friends, loving a world that can bring so much pain, a world were people are nothing more than the sum of their parts, a world in which people might decide that you are better if scattered around the world – every piece in another corner, until you turn to nothing (maybe just your soul, if you believe in having one).

But you know all this from the first book, what’s new in this story is how all different pieces (human bits) might come together and form something unique, something with or without a soul, something unnatural – a new identity forged from the shadows of what once were some poor unwinds.

“He only wishes there were something that would heal the scars in his mind, which he can still feel. He sees his mind now as an archipelago of islands that he labors to build bridges between – and while he’s had great success engineering the most spectacular of bridges, he suspects there are some islands that he’ll never reach.”

♥ Some of our old friends characters:
Meeting again the characters from the first book brought me so much joy.
I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed them until I saw them again.
I loved Lev in particularly. His story was full of suspense and his troubled girl made for a wonderful addition to the wonderful pack of characters we already had. They were both cute, quite funny, but also strong and determined.

♥ The need to read more:
If the first book was doing great on its own, as a standalone, this one needs a sequel really badly. We’ve got some unfinished “businesses” over there and I really want a happy ending for my beloved characters.

THE NOT SO VERY

There were some predictable moments, but they didn’t take away the pleasure of reading this. What I didn’t like that much was how some characters turned out to be (with me wanting for them a happily ever after):

• Connor and Risa – I hoped for them to have a happily ever after, because they’ve been through hell and back only to go to hell just one more time. I can’t tell you how sorry I was to see them so close, but also so far away.
  I imagined better things for them and I wanted them to be safe for the rest of their lives.
  But Connor had a lot of work to do to keep all the other kids safe (more even when some people wanted to take his place no matter what) and Risa was too proud for her own good. If they’ve been close once, now there’s a world between them and it’s hard for me to believe that they might have a chance to be happy together in the ending.

• Cam – As interesting as he was and as many questions as he got to raise, he was a bit naive and a bit the insta-love type. Which I didn’t appreciate. I loved how words came back to him somehow backwards, I cared for his inner struggle, but I couldn’t care less for his obsession with the girl (Not her, damn it! From all the girls in the world you had to pick HER! Arhh!). It also seemed forced and it will bring quite some drama in the next book probably.

• Starkey – Oh, how I loved him in the beginning, but if Neal won’t somehow manage to shoot him in the head in the next book I will find a way to unwind this foul character, I definitely will!

• The “evils“, as they are more, were not as menacing as the trailer showed them to be. I was like “oh, yeah.. here comes the other bad guy” instead of screaming and hiding under my bed. But after all I already have one character to hate (and how I hate him), so who needs these guys anyways?

Also the action was really slow. For a while I felt that nothing really happened; and there’s the fact that the timeline was not so well defined (going back and forth in a strange way – al least for me it felt just a tiny bit off).

BUT…

The thing is that this is the beauty of this story.
Neal does not deliver happiness with his words, he gives you raw, brutal moments that take your breath away. His characters are flawed, do mistakes, but in this they actually feel real. They struggle, they suffer, they hope. And you do the same with them while following their paths.

CONCLUSIONS

“Either things happen for a reason, or they happen for no reason at all. Either one’s life is a thread in a glorious tapestry or humanity is just a hopelessly tangled knot.”

I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book and see how the story ends.
I told you, as horrific as so some scenes might be, this book is pretty addictive and I can’t get enough of my favorite characters.

Dear Neal, please keep them safe, and if it’s in your power, please don’t kill anyone that you think I might like 🙂

Happy midnight reading, everyone!

Watch the book trailer: