I just finished reading "When We Wake" by Karen Healey. It is the story of a teenage girl named Teagan brought back to life hundreds of years after her death. She joined her friends at a protest at the Parliament House in Australia and was shot and killed by a sniper aiming for the Prime Minister. She was frozen for a hundred years as the technology to bring her back to life was created. Teagan has an interesting point of view on the social issues of her time. Protesting them one day and the next seeing their effect and extent.
One issue expressed very strongly is the extent of global warming and the need to finding greener sources of energy. The future earth has been altered so drastically that the oceans mean temperature has been raised many degrees and some crops do not grow anywhere on earth anymore do to altered climates. The Australian government has banned meat from the national diet and is using "Humanure" to grow their food. Eating meat is bad for the environment, it wastes food and there is nothing that meat provides that cannot be satisfied with a non meat product. I agree with this solution it just seems like it would be hard to enforce. The governments other solution, "Humanure" is exactly what it sounds like human waste products use as manure for growing crops. Even though this seems alright it is very thoroughly disgusting.
Another issue expressed is immigration. In the future Australia there is a no migrant policy and concentration camps for illegal immigrants that are caught.The economy is doing very well in comparison to the rest of the world with the capabilities to support much of the rest of the world. The main character is strongly against this law as am I. The USA has somewhat similar laws with many people having trouble being able to immigrate. As land of the free it should at least be more accessable to those who want to move.
In conclusion, this book brings up many important issues and addresses them well. The character does not have much of a strong opinion in politics and was mainly brought into politics by her friends. Having a narrator that is un-biased helps the reader to decide there opinion on different issues.
great post and i was wondering, did you read that book after seeing it on my blog? i read it this summer and i agree with you; it's a great book.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, i've never read this book but from your response it looks extremely interesting, maybe i'll take a peak at it. In your post, i liked how you used examples from the text that you feel strongly about and how you included your opinions on the topics, really nice job.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. Never heard of this book but it seems very interesting and unique. I like how you included your opinions and I agree with them.
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