When We Wake by Karen Healey

Release Date: Out now! 

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Pages: 291pgs

The Story

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 Review

A big thanks to Mandee from VeganYANerds blog & the publisher  for a copy of this book!

I have pretty much enjoyed every single book Karen Healey has ever written and I found her new title, WHEN WE WAKE, to be quite an interesting tale as well. I loved the characters because I could relate to them. I loved the setting because it's set in my own home country which is a big bonus I find since it's rare to have Australia being the setting of a book. I loved the story because it wasn't over-the-top with its futuristic elements but rather combined a bunch of realistic issues that may - and still - affect us in today's society. And I thought everything just . . . worked perfectly together as a story. So overall, I thought this book was a very enjoyable read and it was something quite different in the dystopian-slash-sci-fi-like genre which I loved!

Now when I first met with the main character, Tegan (or as she is sometimes referred to as 'Teeg') she was definitely someone who had piqued my interest straightaway in the book. Not only was she very strong in a sense of 'trying her best to survive' in this very bleak and terrifying world and starting this completely new life of hers, while also being a very likable person in general, but as I followed her story along the way I thought she was an incredibly genuine narrator too and that's a very rare quality to find in a book such as this one. I really liked her indeed.

While the story was plotted out well and worked out as well as it should, but the only small issue I had with the book was the romance between Tegan and this boy named Abdi. I really liked Abdi - don't get me wrong here because he was great and all, but while, in a sense, the small romance wasn't the whole point of this book, but I just couldn't quite connect to the romance as much as I wanted to. I would've actually preferred no romance to be included at all. Still, in the end, I found everything worked out and I'm looking forward to reading what else Karen Healey has up her sleeve next. Hopefully some more from this genre because she's really good at writing it and drawing me into it all! Loved it!

Overall, WHEN WE WAKE was a delightful little book and I would highly recommend it to readers who love books with futuristic worlds, action-packed adventures, and pretty much anything else that has a special and unique quirk about it too!

The Rating

4/5 stars

The Shattering by Karen Healey

Release date: 27th June, 2011

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Pages: 302pgs

R.R.P: $17.99

The Story

If you want to find out who

murdered your brother, come with me.

Summerton is perfect: gorgeous weather, stunning scenery, cute out-of-towners to hook up with. But sharp-tongued Keri is immune to her hometown's charms. Her older brother's sudden death has left her shattered by grief and with too many unanswered questions. When Keri discovers that her childhood friend turned rock-chick Janna and seriously smart rich-boy Sione have also lost brothers in unusual circumstances, she begins to suspect that sunny Summerton holds some very dark secrets. As the three investiage, the answers they uncover become more and more frightening. Can the teenagers save Summerton's next victim? Or will they succumb themselves to its strange summer magic?

The Review

Before I start, I want to say a BIG thank you to Allen & Unwin for sending me a copy of this wonderful book! Two books from them within two weeks . . . bless you! *dances* Anyway, THE SHATTERING is the second novel written by Kiwi author Karen Healey, who lives in Australia. Love Australian authors who write fantastic reads! It's not a sequel to her debut novel Guardians of the Dead (a book I was a huge fan of by the way), but it's a damn right interesting story that holds your interest until the very end!

Keri, a teen living in the West Coast town of Summerton in New Zealand's South Island, recently lost her brother to suicide and is still grieving, as are her parents. With the funeral over, Keri still doesn't understand why her brother killed himself. Nobody can figure it out. There was no note, no warning . . . It's a no brainer why she's so confused! He just shot himself one day and Keri found his body. But then there's Janna and Sione - two other characters you will soon meet - who've also lost their brothers to the mysterious and out-of-the-blue suicides. When Janna suggests the suicides have a connection, it's up to the three friends to work out who the killer is or rather what the "killer" is up to in their town.

When this "connection" develops into something a lot more the kids were expecting, there's obviously something strange going on within the town. And it's not what you first think. The town used to rain and rarely attract tourists . . . but for some reason it has been great for one day and then it's perfect for many years since that one day - all happening since the boys started killing themselves. Ever since the suicides Summerton is the best place to go as it's now attracting so much attention and not to mention there's a lot of tourist visits (yes, now there's TOURISTS!). The question here is: Why? Janna - Keri's childhood friend - tends to think it has something to do with the supernatural kind, someone that could be responsible for this town's perfection and for the suicides . . . whether she's right or not, readers will have to read and find out for themselves! But I can definitely say readers will be surprised about what will happen throughout the book. No spoilers from me I'm afraid. ;)

Out of everything I've read, what I loved most about THE SHATTERING is how Karen Healey explored some tough teen issues - from suicide to plain old grief - and she dealt with everything perfectly, and she really knew how to nail it! I also loved the fact that the author spilt the book into three different peoples' perspectives because it gave the book more depth about what was going on in each one of their lives and it came together very nicely. Even though I didn't really like Janna's perspective as much as I loved the other two characters and how I wished Keri and Sione got together (but that of course didn't happen thanks to a nice discovery about Keri), but it was still a fun standalone book. Probably one of the best books as I'm not much of a standalone kind of gal. So, if you liked Karen Healey's first novel Guardian of the Dead or if you haven't read the book yet . . . then you should definitely give this one a try!

The Rating

4/5 stars