The Awoken
A Novel
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
"The Awoken is a phenomenal story—filled with action, romance, plot twists, and a few big juicy reveals!" —Issa Rae
A cinematic, speculative debut about a woman who undergoes cryogenic preservation at the time of her death and wakes up a century later in a world where her very life is a crime.
When Alabine Rivers, a politically active young woman with a bright career and romance ahead of her, finds out the devastating news that she has terminal cancer, the only thing that gives her solace is the possibility of a second life through the emerging field of cryogenics.
A century later, scientists have indeed discovered how to bring the dead back from preservation, but humanity has been locked in a philosophical battle over the ethics of this new Godlike power, a battle that has turned violent: Those who are resurrected, the Awoken, have been declared illegal and are to be shot on sight.
This is the world Alabine is brought into by the Resurrectionists, an underground militia fighting for the rights of the Awoken. Finding herself in a completely unfamiliar world, and one where she is an outsider for the first time in her life, Alabine must figure out how to survive and determine her place in this new society, all while being haunted by lucid memories of her previous life and the man she loved.
The Awoken is a gripping, action-packed story full of plot twists and high emotion. It's a look at prejudice, complicity, the fears that tear us apart, and the hope that can bring us together.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Monroe Howes's frenetic if flawed debut imagines a dystopia in which people "awoken" from cryogenic sleep face a brutal extermination campaign. Outlaw "Resurrectionists" bring 23-year-old Alabine Rivers back to life 101 years after she died from cancer and had her body frozen in 2020. Reanimation has been declared illegal and the "awoken" are killed on sight in the reformed United America, where traditional gender norms reign and cultural and religious differences are repressed. The Resurrectionists, stationed at a camp in the largely deserted Chicago, explain to Alabine that she's the poster child for awoken rights because of her boyfriend Max Green's impassioned activism in support of reanimation before his death. Then the Resurrectionists' leaders are arrested, spurring a failed rescue attempt during which government agents capture Alabine. Resisting the secretary of science's demand that she betray her comrades, she escapes and becomes the leader of a Resurrectionist cell that's determined to disrupt the president's plans to blow up a massive cryogenic storage facility in Atlanta. However, when Alabine finds out Max's body is being stored in New York, she decides it's more important to travel there to reanimate him, setting up a showdown between Alabine and her supporters over their strategy. Monroe Howes's inventive worldbuilding holds interest, but a few too many close calls and fortuitous escapes stretch believability, and the meaty ideas get lost in the jumbled plot. This doesn't live up to its intriguing premise.
