64 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Simply Red., August 28, 2011
This review is from: When She Woke (Hardcover)
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Hannah Payne is red.
A conviction of murder in this alternate future earns the convict a red skin tint for the length of their sentence, allowing them to live a public life filled with prejudice and hardship. This sentence unburdens the government of cost and responsibility. There is no separation of church and state. Society has become puritanical.
This book is derivative; not just of "The Scarlet Letter" but of many other dystopian novels. The Handmaid's Tale, Children of Men, We, all come to mind. Though I generally love these kinds of novels, the total lack of originality in this book did drop it a star for me.
Without giving away too much, a major theme in this book is abortion and with a pro-choice slant. I don't think conservative readers will enjoy it much.
The writing was good, the characters interesting, the evolution of Hannah was well-paced. It moved quickly and was generally satisfying. I'm not raving about it, but I enjoyed it, and it has definitely piqued my interest in Mudbound.
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54 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Scarlet Atwood, September 14, 2011
This review is from: When She Woke (Hardcover)
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Summary: Hannah Payne wakes up a vivid shade of red. In the not-so-distant future, this 'chroming' is the punishment for all sorts of crimes, with different colors marking the severity of the transgression. Red is for murder. And in Jordan's dystopian future, most of America is disturbingly Puritanical and abortion is a criminal offense - it's murder, and it is for this crime that Hannah is chromed. By refusing to name the father she has added to her sentence. We soon learn (so this IS NOT a spoiler) that Reverend Dale, her family's pastor, was her lover and the father of her aborted child. The book follows Hannah as she is released from prison and has to cope with living in a world that abuses and discriminates against 'Chromes'. Her journey will cause her to examine her life, her faith, and her love.
Review: As you may have surmised from the summary, this novel is a retelling of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. Hannah Payne/Hester Prynne, Reverend Dale/Dimmesdale, etc. The mean-spirited husband of that tale has been swapped for a bigoted brother-in-law, but much of the debate about sin, suffering, and personal faith remain. The setting and general atmosphere, however, are lifted right from Margaret Atwood's heavy-handed dystopian fantasy The Handmaid's Tale. The legal atmosphere of the novel is incredibly misogynistic, the religious right holds the country in a tyrannical grip, and everything from wearing short skirts to questioning male opinions is a sin. Basically, it's your liberal atheist's worst nightmare. Most of the religious figures are incredibly hypocritical and cruel, and the 'good' characters are persecuted by them.
I waver back and forth on my opinion of the messages in this novel. On the one hand, it offers up to the reader questions of sexuality: what is 'good', what is 'bad', is abortion wrong, is pre-marital sex wrong, is adultery wrong...was Hannah wrong? And to the novel's credit, it doesn't attempt to answer these questions for the reader. This make it a good choice for younger teens who may be grappling with variations on these problems. On the other hand, the treatment of religion in this novel seems a bit heavy-handed. Hannah's family are fundamentalists who abandon her after her 'sin' - only her father stands by her, but he is overruled by his wife. The religious boarding house that takes in Hannah after her imprisonment is horrid - the minister, his wife, and their religious 'counselors' are monstrous sadists who take righteous pleasure in tormenting their sinful charges. The religious right has shut down all women's rights and subordinated women to men. To attempt to balance this negative picture of the religious institution, the author has Hannah finding internal peace with God and her faith. She also meets an inspiring female minister at one point in the novel. These positive portrayals of faith, however, are not salient enough to compete with the negative portrayals of faith in the novel, and as a result, some religious readers may feel alienated by the author.
The issue of female authority is ambiguous here too. There are several negative examples of female authority: Hannah's mother overrules her father in accepting their daughter after she has be convicted of aborting her baby, and the minister's wife at the boarding house clearly runs the sadistic show there. But at the same time the female leaders of the liberal rebellion and the female minister are positive female models.
What is Jordan saying about religion? What is she saying about female authority? What is she saying about sexuality? In a novel aimed at adult readers, these questions would be well left ambiguous. Young adults, however, may feel adrift at the end of this tale, with no absolute moral or message to take away.
I rated this novel 3 stars because it began very promisingly, but tapered off. The borrowing from Atwood gave me literary deja vu, and the heavy-handed treatment of religion and conservative politics felt excessive even for this liberal atheist reader. Though the religious message was problematized by the positive aspects of faith, I had the feeling that the author was more confused in her message than deliberately ambiguous.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow! Incredible, moving and compelling!, August 27, 2011
This review is from: When She Woke (Hardcover)
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Wow, what an incredible book! I was stirred by so many different emotions in reading page after page of this dark yet thought provoking novel. I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. I felt rage, sadness, hope, love, fear and anticipation to name a few. This book drew me in from page 1 and I have had a hard time putting it down since.
We see Hannah change from a naive young adult to someone who has seen and felt what most people in their entire lives never experience. With every page that Hilary Jordan wrote, I was drawn into Hannah's character. I felt what she felt and thought what she thought. Every page was written in such detail that at times I felt like I was in the story. I became entranced. Hannah's honesty and integrity made her highly likable.
This book is dark, and there is subject matter that can be difficult to read, but this book makes you think. It isn't about religion, yet, it makes you think about the concept of religion and God and the meaning of just what is right and what is wrong. You see this perspective from someone who was raised as a highly moral "good" person but now is a criminal or "bad" person because of a choice that she made. This book is truly about the struggles of a lost girl who's life was completely changed and how she has to deal with her life now as a "Chrome" whom nearly everyone looks down upon and treats as an object instead of a human. In dealing with this, her faith in God which was so strong prior to her being chromed is tested and nearly destroyed.
Even though the subject matter can be difficult to read, the author doesn't go into graphic detail. I was glad because instead of focusing on uncomfortable details, it allows the reader to just absorb each situation for what it is, and continue on. I have never read a book quite like this one. If you are up for a provocative read that leaves you questioning and thinking about life in different terms and seeing life from another perspective, even though it is from a different, futuristic time period with new sets of rules, then I would highly recommend this book. This is now ranked up there as one of the most interesting books I have ever had the pleasure to read.
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