When She Woke - Hillary Jordan - 3 stars

[Susie]

When She Woke is a reimagining of The Scarlet Letter, set in America in the not too distant future. It follows Hannah, a young woman who has been convicted of murder for having an abortion after falling pregnant to the pastor with whom she was having an affair. In this future the penalty for crimes is to be 'chromed', whereby the felon's skin colour is genetically altered so that they are recognisable to all. The colour of murder is red. Hannah navigates the world after being newly chromed, and along the way tells the story of what led to her conviction in an America where church and state are again one in the same.

Emily May and I often disagree, but on this one I agree with her completely. It was like I read two completely different books. The beginning was wonderful and was excited about the prospect of a potential five star read, however the second half was tedious and a hard slog to get through. I ended up speed reading to just get it over with. I found the religious aspect tiresome and felt that it was rushed and frankly boring. Oh well. You can't win them all.

[Karin]

I was quite disappointed with this book, although I liked Mudbound.

[Susie]

Did you feel as though it started well and then dropped off too Karin?

[Karin]

Susie wrote: "Did you feel as though it started well and then dropped off too Karin?"

I can't remember, but I might have. I just didn't like it much. My review didn't make it over from Shelfari so in order to dig it out I'd have to go see if it made it to LibraryThing or if I wrote it during the few years I saved all of my reviews in a Word document.

[Joi]

Oh dang, it sounded so promising from the premise!! Plus I loved The Scarlet Letter
From the first paragraph, it almost sounded like another version of the world of Red Clocks- or what it could have been.