Awaken (YA)

Awaken. Katie Kacvinsky. 2011. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 320 pages.

My mom gave me an old leather-bound journal for my seventeenth birthday. At first the blank pages surprised me, as if the story inside was lost or had slipped out. She explained sometimes the story is supposed to be missing because it's still waiting to be written. Leave it to my mom to give me something from the past to use in the future.

Is Awaken a science fiction novel? Perhaps if you consider all books set in the future to be science fiction. Awaken is set in 2060. If I were to tell you the novel reads more like social commentary, would that frighten you away?

The premise of Awaken is simple. Maddie, our heroine, lives in a world where EVERYTHING is digital. Everyone--no matter your age--is always plugged into technology. If you're going for a walk with a friend--chances are, it's not a real walk, and you're not seeing your friend face to face. If you're meeting your friends at the coffee shop--same thing. And book club. And on those rare occasions when you do leave your house, when you do meet people, your technology isn't all that far away from you. You can be in the same room with someone and still be miles away from them--if your focus remains elsewhere.

The premise of Awaken is that people have forgotten how to LIVE their lives. They have forgotten what it was like to really feel, to really experience, to do. People have gotten comfortable--too comfortable choosing what is convenient, what is safe, what is known.

So the novel focuses on what happens when Maddie decides to start living life, what happens when she chooses to go out of the house, to start meeting people, to start hanging out with others. Of course, it's a bit more complex than that! Maddie's father isn't just anybody. He's SOMEBODY. And the strict rules are there for a reason--even though readers may not learn that for quite a while.

Read Awaken

• If you like reading novels set in the future--like Rash, like Scored, like Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083.
• If you like reading books that challenge you to think
• If you like your dystopia with a focus on education
• If you like your dystopia with a hint of romance

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews