July Book Club Discussion: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

My book club met this past Saturday at Novel Places to discuss the book Serena nominated, When She Woke by Hillary Jordan (my review).  I’m going to recap our discussion here, and if you’ve read the book, please feel free to weigh in.  If you haven’t read the book, beware of spoilers!!

Most of us liked the book for the most part, having no problems with the writing and finding the story interesting enough to grab our attention.  One member loved it, and one member hated it.  Most of us found the main character infuriating at times, and one member mentioned how he thought all of the villains were really well done and how the book should have been broken into two parts, one book covering Hannah’s time in the Straight Path Center following her release from the Chrome center and the second book showing how she copes in society as a Chrome.

We spent a lot of time talking about blame when it was brought up that the author seems to want us to feel sorry for Hannah.  One member thought Hannah’s married lover and pastor, Aidan Dale, shouldered most of the blame because he took advantage of his position of authority, but most believed Hannah was equally to blame because she knowingly took a job that put her in close contact with Aidan — even working alongside his wife! — and answered the knock on the door in the adjoining suite when they were on a business trip knowing that Aidan and a night of passion were on the other side.

While those of us who read The Scarlet Letter didn’t remember all the details, we discussed how the worlds created by Hawthorne and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale seemed more ominous and oppressive than the society in When She Woke.  Hannah seemed held back only by her religious upbringing.  However, we did appreciate the details Jordan provided about the Great Scourge, which made many women infertile and prompted the overturning of Roe v. Wade.  We also liked the sci-fi aspect of the story, how a virus is used to chrome people and their minds become fragmented if they don’t receive regular injections over the course of their sentencing.  We talked about how chroming is similar to or different from punishments currently in use, and one member mentioned that some people would probably think chroming is cool, i.e. chroming as the new body piercing.

The group also discussed what some of us perceived as the author’s agenda against religion, and one member noted how the book helped him look at the abortion debate differently and how it is more important for people to worry about their own sins than judge others for theirs.  We also discussed how the latter half of the book, when Hannah is being moved through an Underground Railroad of sorts used to spirit Chromes to Canada to be changed back to their normal selves, greatly differed from the first half, with most of us expressing a dislike for the way Jordan forced Hannah’s character into the resistance movement and never gave readers a chance to see how she would have fared in the real world on her own.

Some members found it difficult to like Hannah because she could be so perceptive one moment and so blind the next, having what one member viewed as a super power in being able to get a handle on some people right away but having no clue that she and her friend were being sold into slavery even when there were plenty of red flags.  Many of us also had a problem with the lesbian scene between Hannah and the leader of the Novembrists, mainly because it came out of nowhere right after Hannah emerges from the effects of a very sinister rape drug.  And Hannah going to see Aidan again…grr.  We all pretty much agreed that he was weak, especially when he told Hannah to expose him when he could easily have done that himself.

Overall, When She Woke made for an interesting discussion, but I’m really looking forward to August’s book, which my husband nominated: Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick.  Until then…

© 2012 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

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Review: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

Source: Review copy from Algonquin
Rating: ★★★☆☆

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.

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