If what hooked you in Variant was Benson Fisher piecing together the truth behind Maxfield Academy’s ever-watching cameras and rule-by-intercom, you’ll love following Rosie Sinclair as she uncovers why her elite arts school sedates students and harvests their dreams. That same locked-campus tension—no trustworthy adults, secrets behind every door, and a student forced to investigate or become the next victim—drives this thriller.

Like Benson’s fight to escape Maxfield’s faceless authority, Unwind throws Connor, Risa, and Lev into a society with rules designed to erase them—and asks how far they’ll go to survive. If the way Variant turns an institution into a nightmare machine grabbed you, the black-market clinics, harvest camps, and moral traps here will hit the same nerve.

Remember how a single discovery at Maxfield makes Benson question who among his classmates is even human? The Knife of Never Letting Go delivers that same gut-punch of revelation again and again, as Todd and Viola peel back lies about their town and the "Noise." If you crave twists that rewire the stakes mid-chase, this one delivers hard.

If Benson’s desperate plans, fragile alliances, and risky runs for the fence kept you turning pages in Variant, Thomas’s fight through the shifting stone corridors—and the deadly consequences of breaking the maze’s rules—will feel right at home. It’s the same high-adrenaline survival puzzle with every choice potentially fatal.

Benson’s careful sleuthing under constant surveillance at Maxfield mirrors Luke Ellis’s quiet investigation inside a secret facility where kids vanish to the "Back Half." If you liked following clues under the cameras, testing who to trust, and plotting an escape before the next "discipline" falls, The Institute scratches that itch.