Unwind Summary

According to Bill of Life, a set of constitutional amendments which govern the alternate version of the U.S. in which the novel takes place, pregnant women cannot get abortions, but they can unwind their child when the child turns 13. Through unwinding, that child will go on living in a divided state as an organ and tissue donor. 16-year-old Connor recently learned that he’s going to be unwound. Though he’s hurt when his girlfriend, Ariana, won’t run away with him to escape his fate, he runs away on his own anyway. At the same time, Risa, a 15-year-old ward of the state and aspiring concert pianist, learns that she’s also going to be unwound, and Lev, a 13-year-old tithe (someone raised knowing they will be unwound as a religious offering), attends his tithing party. There, his oldest brother, Marcus, stands up against their parents in opposition to tithing. The next day, the three characters converge: Juvey-cops chase Connor across an interstate and Connor pulls Lev out of his car, which causes Risa’s bus to crash. Pastor Dan, Lev’s childhood pastor, tells Lev to run, and all three escape into the woods. Connor shoots a Juvey-cop with his own gun in order to escape. Lev is horrified to find himself in the company of dirty and wild Unwinds, but he vows to act like them and get revenge later.

When the teens reach civilization, they’re forced to board a school bus to look inconspicuous—but before they board, Connor rescues a storked baby from a nearby porch. At the school, they hide in a bathroom and Connor explains why he stole the baby. When he was little, his family was storked but didn’t want more children, so his parents put the baby on a neighbor’s porch. Two weeks later, the baby reappeared after being secretly passed around the neighborhood, and it was so neglected and ill that it died. Lev sneaks out of the bathroom and alerts adults. They call the police and Lev calls Pastor Dan. Lev is shocked when Pastor Dan says that nobody will ask questions about Lev’s absence and insists that Lev go on and reinvent himself. Confused but knowing he’s done a horrible thing to Connor and Risa, Lev pulls the fire alarm. A kind teacher named Hannah helps smuggle Connor and Risa outside, where they pretend to be clappers to create a panic and escape—while Lev almost foils their plans by yelling for them.

Hannah sends Connor, Risa, and baby Didi to a woman named Sonia. Sonia runs a safe house out of her basement and already has three teens, Roland, Hayden, and Mai, staying with her. Roland is a bully and scares Connor, but Hayden is smart and kind. Hayden introduces Mai to the legend of Humphrey Dunfee, a boy who was unwound but whose parents went on a killing spree and killed everyone who got one of Humphrey’s parts. The day before the teens leave, Sonia asks them to write letters. If they don’t come back for the letters, she’ll assume the teens were unwound and mail them. She assures Connor that she’s not all good, but she’s trying. Before the teens leave Sonia, Hannah takes Didi. From there, Connor and Risa bounce between safe houses and end up in a warehouse run by adults they call the Fatigues. There, Risa realizes that Roland is dangerous: he manipulates people, supposedly has a weapon, and will no doubt take Connor out the first chance he gets. She tells Connor that under no circumstances should he take Roland’s bait. Connor follows Risa’s advice and when Roland threatens to rape Risa, Connor pretends not to care. Roland leaves Risa alone, but the experience terrifies Risa.

One morning, the Fatigues tell the teens to get into shipping containers. Connor narrowly avoids ending up in a crate with Roland, and instead is put in a crate with Hayden, a boy named Diego, and an asthmatic named Emby. They discuss the morality of unwinding and Emby suggests it’s not entirely bad—as a kid with pulmonary fibrosis, he only survived because he received an Unwind’s lung. The teens land in the Arizona desert in an airfield for decommissioned airplanes called the Graveyard. They learn that a crate of five boys suffocated in transit. A group of five teens known as the Goldens get the newcomers settled, and the Admiral, who runs the place, lays down the rules. Connor doesn’t like the Admiral, who has a suspiciously bright smile and a piercing stare. However, Connor soon finds his niche as a mechanic, while Risa settles in as a medic. Roland manages to sweet-talk the helicopter pilot, Cleaver, into teaching him to fly. Connor grumbles every time they hold a work call, in which kids volunteer to do jobs in exchange for protection. He believes the Admiral is running a slave operation and to Connor’s surprise, Roland agrees with him, and suggests that the Admiral unwinds kids and steals their body parts.

After being separated from Connor and Risa, Lev meets an umber boy named CyFi. CyFi likes to talk and Lev feels like he needs to hear anything but the confusing thoughts in his own head, so he agrees to accompany CyFi to Joplin, Missouri. Lev has no idea why they’re going until they reach a town in Illinois. There, CyFi steals a Christmas ornament and has what seems to Lev like a seizure. CyFi explains that he was in an accident as a kid and received the entire temporal lobe of an Unwind—but now, CyFi experiences the thoughts, feelings and impulses of the Unwind, who was a compulsive thief. The Unwind was from Joplin, and CyFi hopes that if he takes the Unwind there, things will improve for him. In Joplin, CyFi and Lev find CyFi’s dads at the home of the Unwind’s parents, and CyFi learns that the Unwind’s name is Tyler. CyFi allows Tyler to take over, digs up a suitcase of stolen jewelry, and begs Tyler’s parents to not unwind him. Lev is horrified to see that Tyler doesn’t realize he was unwound. After the situation resolves, Lev runs away, forever changed by what he saw.

Not long after, Lev arrives in the Graveyard. One day, the Admiral summons Connor to repair his coffeemaker. The coffeemaker isn’t broken, however, and Connor accuses the Admiral of unwinding kids for profit and stealing their teeth. Shocked, the Admiral rips out his teeth—they’re dentures. He then takes Connor to see something horrifying: someone murdered the Goldens by locking them in the same crate in which the five boys died earlier. The Admiral asks Connor to help him figure out who did it. Connor suspects Roland and comes up with projects that allow him to listen in on conversations. He struggles to not give himself away and yet still shut down Roland’s attempts to sow fear and distrust of the Admiral by suggesting that the Admiral’s is interested in Emby’s scalp. Connor later shares his suspicions that Roland killed the Goldens with the Admiral. The Admiral, meanwhile, tells Connor what actually happened in the Heartland War: he was part of the third side of the war and was tasked with brokering peace between the pro-life and pro-choice armies. The Bill of Life, which legalized unwinding, was intended to shock the parties into seeing that they were being ridiculous—but instead, they signed it into law. A few years later, when the Admiral’s son Harlan began acting out, the Admiral was pressured to unwind Harlan. Now, the Admiral runs the Graveyard to atone for what he did.

Meanwhile, Lev follows the instructions of a girl he met in a safe house and enters a jet. Inside he finds Cleaver with two kids, Mai and Blaine. Lev insists he wants to be a part of their group and truthfully says he hates everyone who supports unwinding and wants to make them suffer, though he’s surprised to learn that Roland isn’t a part of the group. Lev, Mai, and Blaine leave on a work call the next day. Not long after, the Admiral summons Emby and sends him away with two men. It takes the kids at the Graveyard two days to realize that Emby is gone and they reason that the Admiral killed him. When they discover that Connor and Roland are gone too, they riot. They’re wrong, however: Connor has locked Roland in a shipping container far away from the main camp and is trying to get him to confess to killing the Goldens. Risa protects the Admiral from the rioting teens by locking them in the plane, but Cleaver isn’t so lucky. He feels drawn to the chaos and the teens beat him. Hayden finally discovers Connor, and Connor is able to break up the riot and tries to protect Cleaver. He’s shocked when Cleaver suggests that dying like this is better than suffocating, which Connor takes as an admission that Cleaver killed the Goldens. When he gets into the Admiral’s plane, Risa insists they have to get the Admiral to a hospital, as he’s having a heart attack. Connor convinces Roland to fly them, but at the hospital, Roland rats them out. All three are taken to Happy Jack Harvest Camp.

Kids at the harvest camp are thrilled to meet Connor, whose reputation precedes him. Risa is assigned to play with the band, which plays on top of the Chop Shop, the building where unwinding takes place. She feels like it’s unethical to watch kids meet their end, but Dalton, a bass player, insists it’s the only way to stay alive. Lev is at the harvest camp too, but for a very different reason. After leaving the Graveyard on the “work call,” people praised Lev and replaced his blood with explosive liquid. He, Mai, and Blaine are now clappers, and plan to blow up the camp. One evening, Roland tries to strangle Connor, but he can’t go through with it. Counselors take him to be unwound the next afternoon. The experience is horrific: he’s awake and terrified the entire time. Word gets out that Connor is slated to go next. Lev insists to Mai and Blaine that they have to act soon so they can save Connor. Lev is late getting to his spot, however, and the Chop Shop explodes just after Connor steps inside. Risa and the band fall when the roof collapses. Though Lev is in excruciating emotional pain, he can’t bring himself to clap, and instead stanches Connor’s bleeding and leads the rescue effort.

Connor wakes up in the hospital and learns that nurses have given him a new identity—that of a member of a wealthy local family—which saves him from unwinding and also made him eligible for emergency transplants for his eye and his arm. To his horror, Connor realizes that he received Roland’s arm. He finds Risa and learns that she refused the transplant surgery that would cure the lower body paralysis she sustained in her fall. Now, as a disabled person, she can’t be unwound. At the same time, Pastor Dan visits Lev in federal prison. He says that Lev is an anomaly, as clappers never back out. Because of his actions, people, including CyFi, are beginning to speak out about the horrors of unwinding. Connor and Risa return to the Graveyard to run the operation and rescue Unwinds, while on the Admiral’s ranch, he holds a birthday party for Harlan. The guests are the hundreds of people who received body parts from Harlan, including Emby, who has Harlan’s left lung.