August 02, 2014

When We Wake by Karen Healey (review)

Title: When We Wake
Author: Karen Healey
Release date: January 1, 2013
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Mystery
Buy on: Amazon | Book Depository | B&N
Goodreads

Sixteen-year-old Tegan is just like every other girl living in 2027—she's happiest when playing the guitar, she's falling in love for the first time, and she's joining her friends to protest the wrongs of the world: environmental collapse, social discrimination, and political injustice.

But on what should have been the best day of Tegan's life, she dies—and wakes up a hundred years later, locked in a government facility with no idea what happened.

The future isn't all she had hoped it would be, and when appalling secrets come to light, Tegan must make a choice: Does she keep her head down and survive, or fight for a better world?

Since Science Fiction and me usually don't go together very well, I was a bit wary of the book. The cover is amazing and was the thing that drew me to it and the blurb sounds cool. And that was what the story was: it was pretty cool. But it didn't convince me all the way and there were some things that annoyed me. But that's the thing with science fiction (and also with fantasy): it is all completely made up, so how someone imagines the future can be completely different from what I imagine the future to be.

The story is about Tegan who lives in 2027, not too far from now. One day she's protesting with her friends and is near the prime minister when a sniper (who apparently has never shot a gun before, because seriously, how can you shoot a sixteen year old girl instead of the prime minister?), accidentally shoots Tegan instead of the prime minister. So Tegan dies. Or does she? She wakes up a hundred years later. She gave her body to science and they froze her, only to bring her back to life again.

The future is quite horrible. The world is pretty much dying and Australia, where Tegan is from, turned into quite a horrible country. There is a very strict no immigration policy and people who do try to get to Australia get put into camps. And there are so many other things going on with the world.

In the beginning Tegan find it quite difficult to adapt to the situation and the era she's living in. Slang has changed (and o my god, the writer was probably laughing while coming up with some of these words), technology has advanced and she misses her friends who, from what it felt like, she hang out with only a couple days ago. She eventually gets some new friends though, but not everyone is a fan of her.

She starts to get known as the Living Dead Girl and everyone wants to interview her. There are also parties that would rather want her dead, since they think her soul is dead anyway. And then there's the whole 'why do they really want to bring people back to life?' thing. All in all, it is quite an energetic read with some thriller and myster aspects. And of course romance. Because who doesn't want romance when there is already so much going on (not me, really. They could as well have left that out.). I think it was a good, interesting read, but nothing spectacular.


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