The Awoken
In 2021, a young woman with terminal cancer decides to have her body cryogenically preserved, hoping that the future will hold a cure for her disease...Medical technology and political ideology can be uneasy companions, as is the case when, 100 years later, Alabene is reanimated by a shadowy group of rebels called Resurrectionists, whose mission is to save the millions of people who have frozen their bodies...Alabene joins the rebels and embarks on a dangerous mission to liberate the Awoken, all while desperately searching for her lost love, the man who supported her throughout her illness...Howes’ debut novel treats readers to a reflective, futuristic adventure story that’s full of twists and turns while also offering thoughtful commentary on issues that are all too real in our here and now: medical ethics, equity and inclusion, and personal freedom.
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Shortly after Alabine Rivers falls in love with Max Green, she discovers she has lymphoma...Her oncologist is initially optimistic, but when it becomes clear that Alabine is going to die at age 23, she and Max start fundraising for her only remaining option: cryogenics...The plan is for CryoLabs to preserve and maintain Alabine’s body until science finds a way to cure her and bring her back—hopefully no more than a few decades from now...It comes as a surprise, then, when Alabine regains consciousness a century later in an abandoned cryo clinic swarming with armed soldiers...Howes thoughtfully extrapolates from current events to create a chilling, all-too-plausible future...Vividly sketched, deeply sympathetic characters and high-stakes, adrenaline-fueled plotting propel the tale to a cathartic close...Intelligent, action-packed, and emotionally charged.
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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...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.
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