When she woke, she was red. Not flushed, nor sunburned, but the solid, declarative red of a stop sign.
(from When She Woke, page 3)
When She Woke was my book club’s July pick but one I’d been planning to read at some point anyway. (My wrap-up of our book club discussion will be posted tomorrow.) In this novel, Hillary Jordan blends aspects of Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, with more of a focus on abortion and technology to appeal to modern readers.
The novel focuses on Hannah Payne, a young unmarried woman who is melachromed for aborting her unborn child. Set at some point in the future in a time when the boundaries between church and state have blurred, a scourge has made many women infertile, prompting the government to overturn Roe v. Wade and institute sanctity of life laws. All but the most dangerous criminal offenders are melachromed, meaning they are injected with a virus that turns their skin a particular color, with murderers like Hannah living as Reds, pedophiles as Blues, and those guilty of lesser offenses as Yellows. Hannah has an extra six years tacked onto her sentence because she refuses to name the father of her unborn child — a man who is well known around the world and whose guilt weighs heavily upon him and takes a toll over time.
Hannah has lived a sheltered life within her fundamentalist Christian community, but she’s always been a bit rebellious. Those acts of rebellion pale in comparison to her having an affair with a married man, getting pregnant, and having an abortion, and it’s no surprise that after she leaves the chroming center, she has no place to go, having been disowned by her mother. Chromes are viewed as outcasts and undesirables, forced to endure stares, insults, and worse from those around them. Hannah is lucky that her father and her former lover are looking out for her, but the center where she is sent to live when she is released in order to be reformed is not the place for someone having a crisis of faith. Hannah is swept from one bad situation to the next, never having a moment to consider her life as a Chrome, always finding herself at the mercy of other people who do not always have her best interests at heart.
When She Woke is a very fast-paced, very readable, and well written novel. I finished it during two days of my work commute and had a hard time putting it down. I liked it, but I didn’t love it, mostly because I didn’t find the world Jordan created to be convincing. Melachroming doesn’t seem like a desirable system of punishing people, and the way Chromes are treated is quite sad. I could see why the fundamentalist Christian community in which Hannah lived was stifling, but people were living different, more open lives outside that community. I didn’t feel the fear, despair, and helplessness that I felt while reading The Handmaid’s Tale, where the religious regime that takes over the government infiltrates the lives of all citizens.
I also felt the novel to be heavy-handed and manipulative. Nearly all of the fundamentalists portrayed in the novel had no redeeming qualities, and one was even sickeningly sadistic. Now, I don’t know anyone of that faith, and those portrayed in the book don’t share my Christian faith whatsoever, so whether Jordan paints them accurately or not, I can’t say. But it felt like I was supposed to come away from the book thinking religion is evil, ignorant, and misguided, and that I was supposed to feel sorry for Hannah.
I did feel sorry for Hannah to a certain extent because no one deserves the treatment she received from her family and the outside world, and no one should feel like they have no options. And I felt bad that the man she loved was too weak to admit his involvement and let her shoulder all of the blame. However, Hannah isn’t blameless in this situation; she knew the man was married and that they could never have a life together, yet she entered into the affair anyway. There also were scenes that didn’t seem to make sense given Hannah’s character, events that seemed too convenient but were needed to further the plot, and an abrupt ending. I know these statements are vague, but I can’t say more than that without giving too much away.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but like the book because I couldn’t help but like Hannah. There were times I wanted to slap her or scream at her to open her eyes, but I thought she was very believable. For the most part, she acted like you would expect someone to given their sheltered upbringing. I thought her questions about faith before and after the chroming were authentic because we all question our beliefs from time to time, and her desire for human contact and to be loved despite her past transgressions and her new outward appearance was so heartbreaking.
When She Woke is a novel that is bound to generate some strong opinions, given that it takes on such difficult subjects as religion and abortion, sin and forgiveness. While I didn’t find the love story believable (it was more lust or infatuation to me), it was interesting to ponder a society in which technology is used as a form of punishment and how living with a reminder of past mistakes can threaten one’s sanity and survival.
Disclosure: I received When She Woke from Algonquin for review.
© 2012 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.
I have heard good things about the book and hopefully will be able to read it in the coming year.
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You’ll have to let me know what you think of it!
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It sounds like this book is very compelling even if it isn’t perfect. I think there are people who would go for that melachroming if they could.
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I’m sure some people would. Crazy!
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Meh, i think I’d just skip this one
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I thought it was an interesting read overall, but it didn’t live up to all the hype, at least not in my opinion.
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I’m in the same boat with you here. I liked the book, but wanted to love it and it just failed to get me there.
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Can’t win them all, right?
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It was a great book for discussion though.
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Sounds like such a good book. Too bad that I don’t read dystopia. Too sad.
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I find historical fiction sadder than dystopia because at least with dystopia, it hasn’t happened and probably never will. LOL
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definitely agree with you about the religion. I was surprised!
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Part of me wasn’t surprised because I knew from the summary that Hannah came from a fundamentalist background, but the extent of the push against religion was a bit shocking.
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Before I got to the paragraph where you talked about the novel being “heavy handed and manipulative,” I was already thinking it sounded like the sociopolitical message was delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Based on the premise — despite the fact that I like dystopian literature (and loved A Handmaid’s Tale) — it doesn’t sound like this book would appeal to me at all. On the other hand, I’ve been on the lookout for this author’s work — I loved Mudbound. I guess I’m on the fence on this one.
I dislike heavy-handed one-dimensional treatments of complex issues like abortion, and I dislike simplistic bashing of religion in any form. I’m not religious myself, but it bothers me. I will concede, however, that BermudaOnion has a point. There is probably a handful of whackadoodles out there who would go for this “melachroming” if they could.
http://eclecticbooksandmovies.blogspot.com/
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Well said! I believe every person is entitled to an opinion, but I just don’t understand the bashing.
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I have this book. For awhile I thought I should read The Scarlett Letter first, but that is probably not going to happen. Crazy how I get so excited over new books then I move on to something else. I need to dig this one out.
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You definitely don’t need to read The Scarlet Letter first.
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This one doesn’t interest me although I do like dystopian.
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It definitely wasn’t the best dystopian I’ve ever read, so honestly you probably aren’t missing anything.
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[…] Comments « Review: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan […]
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I really enjoyed The Scarlet Letter, so I think I would probably dislike this book just in comparison, anyway. I can see how a poorly developed world would make it harder to enjoy, as I always appreciate a good setting!
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There were some inconsistencies and those frustrated me the most.
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I’m on the fence about this one. I don’t think this one would be for me.
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It’s definitely not for everyone, though it did make a great book club discussion book.
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Wonderful review. The premise sounds very good, yet the story does sound both bad and good. I’d definitely want to read it though.
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I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!
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I’m reading this right now, so I sort of skimmed the review, but I’m looking forward to coming back here after I finish the book to give your review a more thorough reading and also to see what your book group thought. I agree that parts of it feel a little heavy-handed, but I can’t quite tell which way the heavy is leaning; I think it would be interesting to hear a discussion between a pro-lifer and a pro-choicer after reading this book–I suspect that each might think that the book was biased toward her opinion.
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Hmm…interesting take. Looking forward to your final thoughts.
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I’m not sure if this is one for me or not….maybe one day I will try it.
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I think it’s worth giving a try. There’s nothing wrong with the writing. 🙂
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[…] “When She Woke is a novel that is bound to generate some strong opinions, given that it takes on such difficult subjects as religion and abortion, sin and forgiveness. While I didn’t find the love story believable (it was more lust or infatuation to me), it was interesting to ponder a society in which technology is used as a form of punishment and how living with a reminder of past mistakes can threaten one’s sanity and survival.” Diary of an Eccentric […]
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