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Jan 22, 2012

Meghan rated it:

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12 comments like (28 people liked it)

Nov 23, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

This was a four-star book until the last 80 or so pages, and then it lost its way. So 3.5 stars it is.

The novel starts off strong with a tale of private shame made very public, and gleeful cruelty masquerading as religious piety. I saw some spooky parallels with the way Warren Jeffs was controlling the FLDS Church a few years ago.

Jordan takes the basic themes from Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and brings them into the future with the addition of abortion and extreme fundam More...

14 comments like (30 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2011

Kara rated it:

I really loved this book. Not only was the plot compelling and fast-paced, but the issues explored in the story (abortion, religion, justice, feminism, individualism, etc) were pretty thought-provoking.

The author also did a fantastic job creating complex, believable, intensely human characters. Hannah's personal development through the course of the novel in particular was well done.

Great read, highly recommended.

0 comments like (14 people liked it)

Dec 24, 2011

Pam rated it:

I just finished and a review will come later but for now I have very few coherent thoughts as I process everything that I have read in this fabulous and amazing novel.

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Nov 12, 2011

Knowledge Lost rated it:

When She Woke is in essence a modern version of The Scarlet Letter, but instead of the letter A, her skin is turned bright red. The book is set in the not so distant future, where religion is in control, and everyone is a religious fanatic; that’s right, its set in Texas. Imagine a world where the Westboro church is in charge and you pretty much have an idea of this dystopian society. This is a rather good modernisation of the classic Nathaniel Hawthorne story; it has taken all the key elements More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 09, 2011

Min rated it:

It takes a special book to hook me into reading it in one sitting. Maybe it's the timeliness to the current political and faith debate, maybe it's my affinity for The Scarlet Letter, or maybe Hillary Jordan is just that damn good. Whatever the maybe, this book grabs you and drops you into a completely realized world that is both terrifying and familiar. If you enjoy books like The Handmaid's Tale, or even the more current and YA focused The Hunger Games Trilogy, this book is sure to grab your in More...

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2011

Lyndz_♥ rated it:

First off, I do not just go around tossing out 5 stars all willy nilly. This is something I reserve only for my very favorite books. I predict that this book is going to be a hit with book clubs across the nation. It is an excellent read, it is provocative, enthralling, and thought provoking. This subject matter sticks with you. It forces you to take a closer look at your beliefs and see things from a different point of view. I highly recommend checking it out when it is released. Hillary Jorda More...

9 comments like (16 people liked it)

Nov 28, 2011

Elizabeth rated it:

Cautionary tale about separation of church and state. As is KEEP THEM SEPARATE. Much like Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" this book is set in a future where a super STD has rendered most women sterile (and so) Roe vs. Wade has been appealed. Except, "When She Woke," is actually a retelling of the "Scarlet Letter." Instead of a big, red "A" Hannah Payne (Hester Pryne) is tinted red for having had an abortion after her famous (and married) BF Pastor More...

7 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2011

Melissa rated it:

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0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jul 23, 2011

switterbug (Betsey) rated it:

Hannah Payne is twenty-six years old and Red, with a capital R, her badge of shame. Her skin has been “melachromed” by the State for her crime of abortion, and for not naming the abortionist and not identifying the father, the celebrated pastor and TV (“vid”) evangelist, Aidan Dale, who is now the nation's "Secretary of Faith." Her sentence is thirty days confinement, and then sixteen years in the community as a Red, where she will be constantly ostracized and persecuted.

More...

8 comments like (16 people liked it)

Oct 26, 2011

Claire rated it:

I read this book in one day because I was thoroughly engrossed in Hannah Payne's story. "When She Woke" takes place in one of fiction's scariest places: the chilling and dystopian near future. Clearly different than where we live yet close enough that we can see how it could happen. After a "Great Scourge" that left women barren, a Second Great Depression and terrorist attacks that leave LA in rubble, the evangelicals have taken over politics and law enforcement. Without enou More...

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 27, 2011

Donna rated it:

When She Woke is a dystopian themed adult fiction inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. And like Hawthorne's book, the main character, Hannah Payne, is publicly condemned and ostracized for her perceived crime and forced to wear scarlet as a badge of shame, yet refuses to name the man responsible for her pregnancy. When She Woke also explores similar themes of religion, adultery, and criminality as did The Scarlet Letter.

After being convicted of murdering her unborn More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 06, 2011

Cortney rated it:

This is one powerful novel.

Hannah Payne made a choice. That choice turns her world upside down.

This book touches on the issues of race, politics, religion, choice, and love. A very good read.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 20, 2011

Liz rated it:

A real life scarlet letter, Hannah Payne has been tried and convicted for the crime of having an abortion. She is sentenced to 'melachroming' where her skin, by injection of a virus, is dyed fire engine red for a period of 16 years (her sentence extended because she would identify neither the abortionist nor the father of the baby). After serving 30 days in a facility where the cameras in her cell broadcast her movements 24/7, she is sent out into the world with the clothes she came in with an More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 16, 2011

Chance rated it:

This is an important book for the political and spiritual questions it effectively addresses. I was intrigued by the very first page and found it difficult to put the book down at night. The characters, plot and writing were all well done. There is logic in the premise, and the outcome is easily imagined as possible. Certainly the repression of thought is contemporary and troubling.

Although I had quibbles at the end where I found myself skimming travel log type descriptions which adde More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 28, 2011

Will rated it:

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4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2011

Shruti rated it:

This book was a very interesting take on a dystopian novel, and not only because the plot is clearly set in the not too distant future. What really got me about this book was that setting it in the near future took away some of the need to explain the culture. A fact that some people may find to be a detracting point. For me it was offset by the fact that the changes in the future are mainly based on a belief system that a large portion of the world's population is at least generally aware of. T More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

Suzy rated it:

So it’s dystopian future. Where church and state are no longer separated. And Roe v. Wade has been overturned and abortion is illegal. And people who are convicted of crimes have their skins dyed a certain shade as punishment. YES. Are you still interested? You should be. The main character is now red-skinned (for murder) after her abortion, trying to rehabilitate back into society looking like a she-devil. It’s a wicked world and feels eerily possible one day. READ IT AND BE LIKE, ‘THIS IS TOTA More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2011

Miranda rated it:

Have you ever read that book and in your mind you rewrote almost every page. Well, as a Scarlet Letter fan, I obviously made the connection between Hannah and Hester, Dimmsdale and Aidan Dale... but, frankly, I wish I could have written this story because I would have made Hannah stronger, more creative, and braver. Some of the story lines and character plot lines fizzled out so quickly.

But, alas, Hillary Jordan wrote this one first.

It was, though, pretty cool to More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 01, 2011

Gayle rated it:

A retelling of THE SCARLET LETTER, this books deals with how things might be if our country was run by the Christian churches.
Hannah Payne is unwed and pregnant. She gets an abortion so as not to bring shame to her family, but this leads to worse shame and she's convicted of murder because of the Sanctity of Life amendment. Because she refuses to name the father of the child, her punishment is even more severe, but she's protecting the pastor of a mega-church. She fell in love with her past More...

0 comments like

Nov 25, 2011

Michelle added it

When She Woke is a simultaneously horrifying and inspiring novel about finding inner strength. It serves as a warning to those paying attention to the increasing politicization of faith as well as a reminder that blind faith and self-righteousness can be as dangerous as anything else out there. In a country that has never truly overcome its prejudices to skin color, Hannah’s experiences as a Red are disturbing and yet all too familiar.

The topics are heady - capital punishment, aborti More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 16, 2012

JoAnne rated it:

WHEN SHE WOKE
By Hillary Jordan
If THE HANDMAIDS TALE and THE SCARLET LETTER were to have a child it most certainly would be this wonderful book, WHEN SHE WOKE. This well written book captures you with the opening scene of a young woman lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown while being televised to millions of homes.

Hannah Payne’s life had been devoted to church and family all her life until she shared a fierce and forbidden love with a very More...

0 comments like

Feb 15, 2012

Marian rated it:

I found this to be a book I could not put down. This book is a good example of what happens when believers of religion also make the rules for society. An interesting theme of the book is the main male character who is a very popular minister with great fame and friends in government as well as his church He seems truly to be a loving person. He is married but has a relationship with the young female character and gets her pregnant. She knows that allowing this pregnancy to occur will ruin More...

0 comments like

Feb 12, 2012

Amiee rated it:

I decided to do a dystopia challenge this year and this book came on my radar. I thought...interesting! I loved the Scarlet Letter and thought someone reimagining the story so many years later would be awesome.

Imagine my delight when my library emailed me that it was in! I was pretty close to purchasing the book...but I always love when my library helps me out. I picked up the book Friday evening ...and finished it Sunday morning. I couldn't put it down and even stood reading it i More...

0 comments like

Feb 12, 2012

Heather rated it:

The idea of this novel is not so unique as it plays upon The Scarlet Letter. Yet it is creative in the way the author addresses the issues that arose within that novel. In this futuristic society criminals are easily identified by their skin color, as all criminals are chromed with a skin color to match the crime they are convicted of. Caught stealing? You may awake with bright yellow skin. The heroine of this tale, Hannah Payne, awakes red after being convicted for murder because of an abortion More...

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Feb 09, 2012

Liz Lord rated it:

The world that Hillary Jordan creates for her novel When She Woke feels less like a distant cautionary tale and more like a terrifyingly possible tomorrow in a world of controversial 'personhood' legislation and increasingly severe conservatism. All the same I found my self inspired by Hannah's disillusionment and eventual rejection of the world and culture that punished her for loving another person enough to do what she considered the unthinkable to keep them safe.

That being said I d More...

0 comments like

Feb 09, 2012

Sara rated it:

4.5 stars. I loved this book and thought it'd be a 5-star review until the end, when I feel like it sort of lost its way and started wandering a bit. This is definitely a take on The Scarlet Letter, taking the basic plot from there and updating it for a story set in the future, in an America where there is no division between Church and State and religious extremists are basically running the entire nation. Hannah is a woman in her mid-twenties from an upstanding, religious family, but she fa More...

0 comments like

Feb 01, 2012

Becky rated it:

I had a hard time with the believablity of this book. The "not so distant" future set up felt bizarre and it wasn't clear how much chroming and other laws were part of state governments versus the federal government. The author made it in a United States where the government had changed little enough that chroming was a constitutional issue but didn't give any sense how such a clearly unconstitional act would be ruled constitional. Because there was an economic depression? But the surv More...

0 comments like

Jan 30, 2012

Perrin rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Emily rated it:

Incredible novel. I insisted to myself that I would have to read the Scarlet Letter before I read this book, because the person who read it to me said that they were closely related. And they were, in a multitude of ways. Hillary Jordan's Hannah Payne was very similar to Nathanial Hawthorne's Hester Pryne. Other similarities popped up as well, but I cannot disclose those without ruining the book. Overall, however, the connection to the Scarlet Letter was minimal, and the references were merely a More...

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