Title: When She Woke Author: Hillary Jordan
Published: October 4, 2011
Genre(s): Science Fiction
Page Count: 344
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Bellwether Prize winner Hillary Jordan’s provocative new novel, When She Woke, tells the story of a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of a not-too-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned and rehabilitated but chromed—their skin color is genetically altered to match the class of their crimes—and then released back into the population to survive as best they can. Hannah is a Red; her crime is murder.
In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a path of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith.
I honestly did not expect to be a huge fan of When She Woke. This book is advertized as some hyrbid cross of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Scarlet Letter, neither of which I enjoyed very much at all. And I admit that the very pointed social/political/religious commentary and soap-boxing done by Jordan in this book did turn me off in places; however, I can also recognize that this is an exceedingly well-written, well-thought-out novel, and so I certainly can’t say I dislike it or that I wish I hadn’t read it.
In a future version of the United States, the prison system has pretty much been disbanded, and the government has instead opted for a less expensive option: changing the color of a criminal’s skin for certain periods of time. The color indicates the specific crime, and the length of the sentence varies from a few months to a life sentence. It’s a very interesting and thought-provoking situation that has both pros and cons, which I think Jordan does a good job of exploring (though obviously she inserts her own authorial opinion into this ethical dilemma).
When She Woke features narrating protagonist, Hannah, who has been sentenced to 16 years as a Red after she had an abortion and refused to name either the father of her child or the doctor who performed the abortion. The book opens while Hannah’s in prison, then moves to a hellish halfway house, and then moves on to her becoming a fugitive from justice and hanging out with some radical extremist group (less than thrilled with that turn of events, to be honest). The first two sections of the book were much stronger than the last section, which is where Jordan seemed to become less focused on inner character growth and development and more on typical action-packed dystopian storytelling. The vigilante justice bits felt, to me, rather tropey and less original than the beginning of the book had been.
As far as character growth does go, I liked it. Hannah was raised in a fundamentalist/conservative Christian home and as the book progresses she questions her faith, her upbringing, and a lot of other things. When She Woke is not at all subtle in the message it’s trying to convey, so Jordan does get a little preachy, which I didn’t appreciate so much. However, I did think that Hannah’s growth was well-written and accomplished in a masterful manner. And sure, I don’t agree with Jordan’s take on religion at all, but that doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge the skill with which she argues her point.
The only point I truly questioned was Hannah and her strange feelings for the father of her child. She decides at one point to put him out of her life, to move past him, blah blah blah. Their worlds can’t ever intersect now that she’s a (literally) marked criminal. For a good portion of the book, it does seem that she’s moved on from their affair. And then the next thing you know, she’s stupidly risking her life to drive across the country to meet up with him. I really did not understand that at all, and it’s part of what turned me off from the last third of the text—things got too clichéd where they hadn’t been before.
In any case, I enjoyed this book. Jordan has definite talent as an author, and the story in When She Woke was strong and engaging. I would most definitely describe this book as thought-provoking and insightful, if perhaps heavy-handed at times. This isn’t light reading by any means.
