UnDivided, Neal Shushterman

Holy cow!!! In addition to the absolutely phenomenal split narrative that I’ve come to expect (and haven’t been let down!) from Shushterman, he was able to weave such hope and closure to a series that I feel so satisfied with. I don’t feel like I have to defend him as an author, or find the lessons to be learned, because the ending was wrapped up nicely with a bow. Not to say that it was a happy ending for everyone involved, of course, and some things were a LITTLE far fetched for the sake of the way things needed to end.

One of the coolest things is that you learn that his idea of an organ printer is not just a figment of his imagination. Something like that actually exists in its pre-embryonic state. There are people and researchers and scientists who are actually working to make technology like this possible and he documented the first mention of this by publishing part of a press release about it from 2013. This is something that I really wish I had a million bucks or so to back the research on this. I have a friend whose 12 year old daughter has a failing kidney. It’s congenital and progressive. However, she can’t even get on the transplant list until her kidney is at or below 10% function. Last I knew, it was 17%. And even then, there’s always fear of rejection or side effects from immunosuppressive medications and anti-rejection medications. If there was a way to make transplant organs from your own pluripotent stem cells (adult stem cells not associated at all with embryonic stem cells and have no moral issues to obtain them), then there would be no need for those types of medications because your body would recognizes it as its own. It would completely revolutionize medicine and transform people’s lives!

Anyhow, back to the story, I can’t write a ton without giving a lot of crucial parts away, but just know that you get everyone’s perspective. You get to see the societal shift that happens, not as the result of one single incident, but in several different things happening in succession that makes the world wake up and think “My God, what have we done?” We get to have the lesson upfront about how we should think twice about the information we receive, and at whose hand it comes from. We get the advice to “follow the money” something my dad says a lot about politics and politicians. And it’s true, unfortunately, that many times if you follow the money you find the true intentions of the people behind smooth facades. There’s hints at conspiracy theories that governments cause or at least perpetuate problems in order to be the ones who get to “fix” the problems and be seen in a better light. Now, I don’t know if I believe anything in our own current past or present would fall under that category (though many accusations are out there) but I WILL say that I wouldn’t put it past our government to do something like that, and it wouldn’t surprise me if proof were to come to light. I just hope that the rising generation is not as easily duped by advertising as the society that came from this fictional future America. Where democracy works just fine-but the opinions of the masses have been molded and manipulated to be something that the people wouldn’t truly want if they weren’t so brainwashed into believing what the powers that be want them to believe.

PS Even though this series is HIGHLY DISTURBING, in light of the allegations towards Planned Parenthood-regardless of whether you believe what they are being accused of as truthful or not-the fact that the idea is out there and exists means that people should read this series. Hopefully as a shock to the system to see where things could take us if we don't wake up and realize the horrific potential that's out there. Just the mere thought of aborted fetal tissue being sold and there being a market for it and some specimens are worth more than others, the ONLY thing I could think about was THIS book series.