When She Woke in Around the World in 80 Books

Jun 27, 2013 Rebekah rated it really liked it

Shelves: genre-book-club, rating-4, genre-science-fiction, genre-adult, genre-adult-fiction, genre-science-fiction-dystopia, nbrc-bom-br

This book is a timely and gripping novel that initially filled me with cold dread. I always have trouble with dystopian novels, because I find them hard to believe and difficult to put myself in the place of the characters. But honestly, the initial premise of this story struck me as more realistic than any other dystopian novel I have read. The world that Jordan creates seems eerily realistic and plausible. Honestly, growing up in an evangelical conservative church, many of the arguments and ch This book is a timely and gripping novel that initially filled me with cold dread. I always have trouble with dystopian novels, because I find them hard to believe and difficult to put myself in the place of the characters. But honestly, the initial premise of this story struck me as more realistic than any other dystopian novel I have read. The world that Jordan creates seems eerily realistic and plausible. Honestly, growing up in an evangelical conservative church, many of the arguments and characters were horrifyingly familiar to me. I have read and am fans of both The Scarlet Letter and The Handmaid's Tale and definitely see the nods to these two great novels, but feel like this is a quite honest critique of many aspects of modern American society and a current and important addition.

However, this book does not get five stars, because it does have some major flaws. Occasionally the author throws in obscure vocabulary words for no good reason. I don't know if she is trying to sound smarter than she is, or what, but it was annoying to have to look up words in the dictionary and didn't match the rest of her writing style. Also, the book REALLY loses steam and focus at the end and becomes increasingly implausible. There is a lesbian sex scene that is so laughable, out of character, and juvenile, that I couldn't decide whether to laugh or be insulted. Because the one lesbian character in the novel MUST be sexually attracted to our main character! Also, towards the end, the focus changes from philosophical debate to more like a cheap unrealistic thriller. Some major characters are put in dangerous situations and it is as if suddenly the main character does not care about them anymore. It is bizarre. It is almost as if the author was on a deadline and just wanted to wrap up the book, without giving it much thought. Our heroine scrapes by and everything is great and she's changed, all in a very adolescent and I believe, unrealistic, fashion. How sad for a book that started off so grand, ending so poorly? If the author had kept it up, I don't doubt this could have become an American classic.

That being said, I still highly recommend that everyone read this book, if just to have a discussion about the disintegration of women's rights in this country and what the implications are for our future girls. ...more

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Aug 18, 2016 Amy rated it it was amazing

This book was exactly what I needed at the moment. Original. Intense. Makes you think deep thoughts...

It is compared to The Scarlet Letter and the Handsmaids Tale, both of which I love. This is kind of a mash-up of the two, while still being completely unique. It also gives you dystopia without the lame love circle, high school drama or bad writing... I'd like to see it as a movie but let's not involve Kristen Stewart ...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Joseph rated it it was amazing

Shelves: dystopias, best, autographed-copy, discrimination, best-5-star-nonseries-fiction, best-of-2011, read-in-2011-10-oct, read-in-2017-12-december

A breathtaking novel, one that really gets a person thinking. An unputdownable dystopia, one of the scariest dystopias I have ever read but that is what makes this book so great. One of the best books of 2011.

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Dec 29, 2012 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: southern, dystopia

Quite well done, particularly with regard to Hannah's development over the course of the book. I take some issue with the ending simply because I feel like the preceding pages are a setup for a far more aggressive and interesting conclusion. The villains of the piece are probably the biggest weakness, simply because they're very thinly sketched and the sense of malice Jordan is aiming for doesn't come through because they feel so tangential to the plot, particularly in its latter stages. That sa ...more

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