Review of When We Wake by Karen Healey

Review of Karen Healey's When We Wake

Release Date: March 18th, 2014

Synopsis as found on Amazon.com:

My name is Tegan Oglietti, and on the last day of my first lifetime, I was so, so happy.

 

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 government guinea pig to be cryonically frozen and successfully revived, which makes her an instant celebrity--even though all she wants to do is try to rebuild some semblance of a normal life. 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?

 

Award-winning author Karen Healey has created a haunting, cautionary tale of an inspiring protagonist living in a not-so-distant future that could easily be our own.

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After getting shot at a rally in 2027, Tegan wakes 100 years in the future. All of her family and friends are long since dead & the world she lived in has moved on without her. Karen Healey has built a world that I thought I would fall in love with, but I only find myself frustrated.

In the beginning, the reader is introduced to Tegan, her mother, best friend Alex, brother's best friend (and her newly dubbed boyfriend) Dalmar... and we hear about her brother Owen. Even though it is only a chapter we spend getting to know the characters before Tegan is killed, they are still in the forefront of my mind. Healey explains what happened to Dalmar (he goes into politics and marries "the one true love of his life" - later dies of old age, fat & happy) & her brother, Owen (becomes a thief & drug addict - later dies in a jailhouse riot), but she never explains what happened to her mother... and only eludes to Alex's happy life. I spent the rest of the book expecting to find out what happened to them. Sadly, you never find out. 

I also am not entirely happy with the relationship between Tegan & Dalmar's look alike in the future, Abdi... I do not think there was much logical progression in their relationship. It felt sloppily thrown together. I enjoyed the world that she built around all of that, but I could not stop thinking about the little things.

The sequel, While We Run, was released on May 27th, 2014. It is a continuation from where she left off in book 1, but in the eyes of Abdi. I am not sure I have enough patience to subject myself to more frustration. I am usually consciously trying to find the good in every book, because I know how long it takes to write & that each book is an author's pride & joy... but I am just not happy right now after finishing this one.