When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book revolves around a woman named Hannah Elizabeth Payne who had aborted her three-month unborn child to protect and hide the true identity of the father of her offspring and the love of her life―the Reverend Aidan Dale who is married to another woman―from the shame of hypocrisy and adultery. Found guilty by the jury, Hannah is injected with the virus that turns her skin red (a-scarlet-letter-like-punishment) to remind the people that she is a felon of murder of a human being, and in her case, her own flesh and blood, conceived from love and lust, and the Reverend's belief of a punishment for having lied to her wife in the past when he infected himself with the Scourge that made her infertile for a while until a cure was found and she was healed from sterility.


After thirty days of solitary government confinement, she goes out to the real world with her new skin that would change her life entirely. She enters a penance house where she meets Kyla, her new Red friend. In the end penance in the traditional way was too much she decides to leave and goes to her preganant sister's home only to find out that she's been beaten by his husband Cole, a member of The Fist.

Hunted by a vigilante group The Fist, Hannah is saved by a Pro-Abortion, Pro-Homosexuality Feminist underground group called the Novembrists who are a threat from the government. Her journey begins that will change her life and change her perception of the world around her.

a recommended book for everyone! it'll shake you at first the way it did me, but you'll recover. the book started well with the usual dystopian theme but i hated the next few pages due to man's infidelity, the abortion, racism and sexuality issues. hadn't it been for the fact that this book was nominated for Best Science Fiction, i wouldn't have pursued my reading. nonetheless, this book is an eye-opener for the inflexible and the traditional. it provokes the reader to perceive things in different points of view. to resist and fear not change because change is the only constant phenomena in this world. Hannah Payne (the modern day Hester Prynne), the felon who journeys to finding the truth about her faith, about her self, and the world beyond the box that jailed her all her life. she finds her individualism and her courage. in the end, she walks alone in her own personal path until she finds herself once again after losing it. love this book very much. my reasons are somewhat personal, and as a reader, im also being objective in my appraisal. whatever....huh!

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