When She Woke

Starred review from November 28, 2011
In a dystopian future ruled by religious fundamentalists, young Hannah Payne is convicted of murder after having an abortion and becomes a “Chrome”—a criminal whose skin pigment has been altered to reveal her criminality to the world. Heather Corrigan begins her narration in a young, frightened voice, conveying Hannah’s emotion, innocence, vulnerability, and shame. As Hannah matures and begins to question societal values and take control of her life and choices, Corrigan’s voice gradually becomes stronger and more determined, reflecting the character’s evolving maturity and strength. Corrigan also skillfully renders the book’s supporting cast with a dazzling array of distinctive voices, including Southerner Kayla, French Simone, a sympathetic Bostonian preacher, and several merciless, bombastic, fire-and-brimstone villains. With Corrigan’s excellent performance, this already thought-provoking novel becomes an utterly compelling, can’t-stop-listening audiobook. An Algonquin hardcover.

August 15, 2011
Though she was raised a good Christian, Hannah Payne often asks uncomfortable questions in Jordan’s second novel (after Mudbound), such as “Why does God let innocent people suffer?” But questioning authority and breaking Texas law are two different things. Involved with her pastor, Hannah finds herself pregnant; to have the baby would mean publicly naming the father, so Hannah has an abortion. But in this alternate America, three years after the “Great Scourge” turned many women sterile, abortion is illegal, and Hannah is arrested. Her sentence: to live for several years as a “chrome,” injected with a virus that turns her skin bright red. Her father finds her refuge in a halfway house for nonviolent chromes of all hues, but Hannah rebels against the abuse she receives in their “enlightenment sessions” and flees into the arms of an underground feminist group whose brutal pragmatism frightens her. But as she falls victim to betrayal after betrayal, Hannah’s occasionally jarring naïveté begins to break down. Comparisons to The Handmaid’s Tale are inevitable; Jordan extrapolates misogynist fundamentalism to a logical endpoint, but she does little else. Characters are political archetypes, the narrative wanders, and even Hannah’s transformation from dutiful daughter to take-charge fugitive feels false.