Dawn by Octavia Butler

~250 pages

synopsis:
Lilith Ayapo is in the remote Andes, mourning the death of her husband and son, when nuclear war destroys the world. Centuries later, she revives, held captive aboard a starship.

Miraculously powerful and hideously grotesque galactic beings, the Oankali have rescued the planet and the war’s victims out of an irresistible need to heal and a greater need to change all they touch. For the Oankali survive by merging genetically with primitive peoples — without their permission.
Lilith’s children will inherit the Earth and stars. But they will be more — and other — than human.