Review: When We Wake by Karen Healey

When We Wake 
by Karen Healey 
Publisher: Allen & Unwin 

Release Date: January 27th. 2013

Format: Paperback, 291 pages 

The last thing Tegan remembers is the crack as the gun went off, intense pain, and everything fading to black. One hundred years later, she wakes up. A fast-paced near-future romance.

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 in the future, locked in a government facility with no idea what happened. 

 Tegan is the first person to be cryonically frozen and successfully revived, which makes her an instant celebrity - though all she wants is to rebuild some semblance of a normal life ...
 including spending as much time as possible with musically gifted Abdi, even if he does seem to hate the sight of her. But the future isn't all she 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 future.

The first word that comes to mind when I think of When We Wake is 'interesting'. I know that's an extremely vague term to describe the book...but it pretty much sums up my feelings for it. I found the premise fascinating, and the characters were generally likeable but there were parts that I felt could've been handled better. Overall though, it was like I said , an 'interesting' read.

We have our main character, Tegan or 'Teeg' who recently died and woke up 100 years in the future. I'm sure that alone is enough to pique anyone's interest! The idea of a corpse being ‘cryonically frozen’ and then revived a century later was certainly refreshing, thought-provoking and intriguing. It left me wondering; could it possibly aid the future if dead people were able to be revived? And what would the future be like granted this was possible? And of course, there're also questions of just how ethical this is... I love books that make me think so I was really pleased with this!

The characters were all extremely likeable, though admittedly forgettable. One reason would probably be the fact that their names were so hard to remember and no one really…stood out. ( Try remembering names like Abdi / Zaneisha/ Bethari/ Joph; I honestly forgot ALL those names two minutes after finishing the book). Names aside, I really enjoyed Teeg, Bethari & Joph’s friendship; they might not have know each other for long, but they shared this special bond & their friendship was so genuine and endearing<3 There's also Abdi, who helps and supports Teeg along during her ‘second’ life; they got off to a rocky start, but I love how they were able to bond over their mutual love for music, or more specifically, mutual love for The Beatles! The romance takes a backseat, and was a nice addition to the main plotline.

Now, the character I absolutely despised was The Father. He's the leader of a cult called he has the weirdest, most corrupt logic in the world. He wants Teeg to kill herself, because her second chance at life is going against God's wishes. Religious beliefs aside, it was so hypocritical of him to expect her to kill herself because apparently 'murder is a sin' and he didn’t want to get his own hands dirty. Though he’s never killed anyone, he’s known all along that innocents were being murdered but he never intervened. So apparently, as long as it’s not him committing the murder with his bare hands, he'll be exempt from punishment. What on earth? The guy seriously drove me nuts. He was a freaking raging lunatic. (He doesn’t even deserve his own paragraph but I HATE HIM SO MUCH. )

Now, a couple of 'it's-not-you-it's-me' issues. We're educated on a lot of the economic, political and science matters currently taking place in 2128. I think it's great that those details are being touched upon; it gives great background to this futuristic world. However, my problem is that I got bored. I can't sit through an economic, political, nor science lecture without falling asleep.  Looks like I can't read several pages of this without yawning either. That's just me though. Then there's the fact that, even though it was obvious to the readers that something was going on within the government, Teeg and her friends seemed to jump to conclusions so easily. There wasn’t much planning and they just jumped headfirst into dangerous situations. I guess some parts just seemed a little...rushed.

My restlessness in regards to certain matters aside, When We Wake is a unique and thought-provking YA dystopian that I would definitely recommend! It's relatively short, so you can finish it in one sitting :)

       A massive thank you to Allen & Unwin for providing a copy of When We Wake  for review! 

I'm also giving away 3 copies of this lovely book to Australian readers. 

Click HERE for the giveaway :)