Take Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Margaret Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale, cast them both in a post-scourge America where church and state have become one, there are no prisons, and the chief form of entertainment is watching convicted criminals living from day-to-day on television and you have When She Woke.
These convicted criminals are "chromed" - their bodies are chemically altered to cast them a vivid colour so they are immediately identifiable not only for their crime, but also the nature of it.
Hannah Payne is red because she had an abortion and therefore, according to the state, is guilty of murder. She is in prison in solitary confinement for three months then cast out into the streets to make it on her own - knowing that her every move is subject to whoever feels like watching her on TV.
The novel is a form of science fiction but the scary part of it, plus the reason you keep reading it is because it could
SO easily happen.
Lots of room for a lively discussion here. I'm not sure I liked the ending, and I thought Hannah would have suffered a bit more from PTSD - she seems remarkably adapatable to many different situations - but the book certainly has a lot of food for thought in it.
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