Unwind was met with positive reception upon release, with praise focusing on the novel's immersive environment and sociological implications.

A film adaptation of Unwind was in production, but Shusterman announced in January 2020 that a television series would be developed instead.

It was published December 15, 2015, by Simon & Schuster and is a collection of novellas that explore the secrets and lost stories of the Unwind world.

In a near-future dystopian United States, the conflict between the pro-choice and pro-life movements escalated into a second civil war.

In response, the government fought against both sides to stop the war from escalating and closed down schools and other services for children in order to do so.

Children, teenagers, and young adults began protesting and rioting against the actions and nearly toppled the government in an event known as the Teen Uprising.

Unwinding is justified as legal because the patient is kept alive during the entire process and roughly 99% of the body is harvested.

The story centers around three teenagers who have been scheduled to be unwound: Connor Lassiter, Risa Ward, and Levi "Lev" Jedediah Calder.

Connor's actions gave him the name "Akron AWOL" and earns him the reputation of being the runaway who took down a police officer.

At the same time, Risa, a fifteen-year-old orphan on her way to becoming unwound in order to cut her orphanage's costs, uses the jam to escape from the bus she was traveling on.

There, Connor and Risa meet Hayden Upchurch, a teen whose parents decided to have him unwound rather than choose who can have custody over him; Mai, a girl whose parents signed her due to the excess of girls in her family; Zachary, who is nicknamed "Mouth Breather" due to his asthma; and Roland Taggart, a bully with a tiger shark tattoo.

Hannah decides to adopt the newborn girl, and the group is sent to a warehouse that serves as another safe house.

Lev learns that CyFi struggles to find closure with his actions, which has caused him to run away and engage in delinquent activities such as stealing.

Roland, with a new motive to become the new leader, spreads rumors in order to make the teenagers at The Graveyard turn against The Admiral.

Lev becomes a "clapper", a suicide bomber injected with liquid explosive that can be detonated by clapping, alongside Mai and another runaway named Blaine.

A riot ensues when the bodies of The Goldens are discovered, and The Admiral has a heart attack during the resulting chaos.

Connor wakes up in the hospital, and a nurse saves him from being unwound by purposely misidentifying him as a young Juvey-cop killed in the explosion.

The Admiral manages to contact most of the people who ended up with one of his son's parts and organizes a reunion at his home.

[5] A novella entitled UnStrung, written by Neal Shusterman and Michelle Knowlden, was released on July 24, 2012.

UnStrung is a companion story, set within Unwind and follows the events that led Lev to become a clapper.

The story picks up shortly after Lev and CyFi part ways, as he finds himself on a Native American (or ChanceFolk) reservation.