Book 28: When She Woke

When She Woke
Hillary Jordan
3.5 stars

I finished this book before we left on vacation last week, but it's been really hard to figure out what to say about it. It started off awesome. The middle was good, but not quite as strong. And the ending... well, I have to say it veered way off course.

When She Woke is a futuristic retelling/revamping of The Scarlet Letter. Hannah Payne (Hester Prynne) is a young churchgoer who has an affair with her preacher Aidan Dale (Arthur Dimmesdale). In this version of the story, Hannah becomes pregnant and decides to abort the child rather than shed an incriminating light on Dale, who is very much a public figure. I found a review of the book that sums up my feelings exactly, so I am going to post it here and link back to the user on goodreads:

From Jeanette:

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 fundamentalist rule. Hannah Payne (Hester Prynne) and Aidan Dale (Arthur Dimmesdale) have had an affair. She's a young innocent parishioner. He's a married preacher with a huge following and a spotless reputation. Hannah has aborted their love child. Instead of a scarlet letter, she is punished with a scarlet body. 

In this version of America, most criminals serve out their sentences among the general populace rather than behind bars. Their skin is "melachromed" red, yellow, green, or blue, depending on their crimes. Being marked in this way makes them outcasts, subject to derision, physical attacks, and even death threats. Prison would seem a more merciful punishment. [I will add a note here, to clarify that Hannah is melachromed because, in this future America, Roe v. Wade has been overturned and abortion is illegal. Her crime is therefore akin to second degree murder.]

After her initial chroming and public humiliation period, Hannah stays in a halfway house meant to prepare her for re-entering society as a "Red." She then makes a series of stops along a sort of futuristic underground railroad. Here is where the novel begins to go off the tracks, so to speak. It slowly collapses on itself with a tedious journey and a rushed ending that is too inconclusive to warrant the buildup. The quick foray into lesbianism is awkward and unrealistic, and thus feels obligatory rather than purposeful.

I was disappointed that Hannah didn't emerge more strengthened by her ordeal. I think Jordan hoped to show a transformation from a mousy, obedient evangelical girl into a fearless, bold, and resourceful woman. Whatever transformation does occur is too fast to be plausible. Hannah never quite reaches the state of maturity and self-knowledge we might wish for her. She's left mired in that late-adolescent stage of defiance versus dependence. 

I do recommend the book, despite my middling rating. Just don't expect a strong finish to match the powerful beginning. 


And that is pretty much how I feel. I loved the idea for the story, and I was so excited to see what would happen. But I was left feeling very unsatisfied at the end. Jordan didn't seem to be pushing a pro-choice agenda here-- even Hannah believes throughout that abortion is wrong-- but I feel like the agenda she did have was so unclear and muddled by the end as to be unrecognizable. Which is really too bad, because this story had a lot of potential. 


Be warned-- as noted above, there is a quick foray into lesbianism toward the end. It was completely out of character for Hannah, IMO, and just weird. It's not graphic, but I can see it offending some.