A brutal but effective imagining of a world where women can develop the power to kill men with a touch, and the changes that sets in motion.

I loved the idea of this book, and I think it makes a great addition to feminist literature, but for the most part, I didn't understand the hype. Not every character's storyline was flushed out enough, which made the overall story feel a bit lacking. The message was great, but I wished for a stronger execution.

When the first girl discovered her power, not much changed. She didn't know how she was creating sparks in times of stress. But she showed a friend and soon that friend could do it also. As they showed more girls and it hit online applications, girls from all over the world could do it also. Girls had a skein located near their collarbone and it supplied electricity to them. So they could do much more than light cigarettes or show off to their friends. It was the ultimate self defense tool and like most power, it became corrupting and soon the defense turned to offense.

Some quickly realized the advantages of the power. Allie is a sixteen year old girl living in a foster household in Alabama. When she uses the power to kill the man of the house as he is raping her, she starts a journey that eventually leaves her as Mother Eve, the main character in the religion that grows up around the power. Roxy is a London girl from a gangster family who comes to the United States to escape the heat of her criminal activities. Her power strength is legendary and she becomes the enforcer. Margot is a politician and the financial partner of training camps for teenage girls to help them develop their power and become soldiers. She even puts her own two girls in the camps. Tatiana is rescued from a live of sex slavery in a Middle European country and soon gathers enough women around her to create a new country where she is President. Tunde is a Nigerian man who recognizes that the power is the story of a lifetime and uses it to escape his country and become a world renowned journalist.

But with great power comes great responsibility. Can the women as they take their turn in power be sustaining rulers who empower all those around them? Or will they develop power hungry personalities that use their talents to pay back men for the centuries that they have been on top? As the months go by, the lines are drawn more and more clearly and the world inches towards a military disaster that will overshadow any seen before with gender fighting gender. Can things be slowed or reversed?

This novel won the Bailey Woman's Prize for Fiction and was named a Top Ten Book by the New York Times. It is a compelling look at gender politics and the inevitability of power corrupting those who hold it. The power is not just a physical thing but the ability to redefine the world with an unclear decision about who will lay down the laws and what the world will look like after it is changed forever. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

I would have liked this book a lot better if Powers had taken care to include nonbinary and trans characters or explain this phenomenon in a way that isn't so distinctly within a gender binary. To me, it was a really interesting concept that also felt two-dimensional in its execution. I would have loved to see more depth to the characters.

Believe the hype! This outstanding book has garnered a lot of attention and praise lately as equality and women's rights are seemingly under threat in the USA. It merits ever plaudit lauded upon it, as it takes the reader on an incredible journey through gender politics set in the world we all live in today. This is no futuristic dystopia, no post-apocalyptic warzone, this is a novel that creeps into the familiar and flips everything on its head.
The power of the title, appears in teenage girls, who suddenly have the ability to generate intense pain and suffering, and even death, using their bare hands. It's also the shift in power that accompanies it, as women take control of the world as men become "the weaker sex" and start to live in fear of the power their female counterparts wield over them.
Told from the point of view of multiple characters - a rich kid turned wannabe journalist, a foster girl whose super religious parents hide her truth, the daughter of a family of London gangsters, an American politician and her daughter, this is a thought-provoking piece of writing. As Lord Acton once said "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely", a statement that certainly holds true within the pages of this incredible book. Clear some time in your life for this book, because once 'The Power' has you under its spell, you aren't going to be able to pull yourself away from it.

After all the buzz that this book received when it was published I was ready to love it. However, the disappointment I experienced from it led me to rate it a 1. The writing was actually decent and I debated about rating it a 2 for the language, but the book really bothered me so a 1 it is.

What bothered me so much? This book felt behind current feminist thinking. It was so angry and had such a hopeless view of humanity (not just men). The author focused on the most damaged, angry women with power who then dehumanized, tortured, raped and killed men just because they could. (There's a truly horrific rape scene in the book, and while perhaps the author was trying to show the horror of rape whoever the victim is, it felt prurient and like torture porn.) While I can concede that some women who have been abused by men might want to return the favor, the book described a societal change that took place within ten years that was nothing less than earthshaking. Women forming their own paramilitary units or their own rape gangs or their own death cults. Could nothing be done with this power other than destroy? What about the healing possibilities that Allie hinted at? What about using power responsibly? All men don't go around beating each other up every time there's a disagreement, why would all women suddenly go to violence as first resort?

The idea that gender is only about power seemed to be what the author was getting at, and I just don't agree. Different genders have different body chemistries and hormone levels and these things influence action. Speaking of which, the author didn't want to get into any of the issues that could have arisen from trans, intersex or other queer characters, maybe because she was interested in presenting gender in a binary way. Ignoring this aspect weakens her argument. She also inadvertently (?) presented the argument that power imbalances women and that women with power will destroy the world!

Last issue: the author uses a framing device which I found entirely unnecessary and which felt unrealistic enough that it threw me out of the book. The idea is that 5000 years after the gender cataclysm, our society has turned out exactly the same as it looks today, only gender-flipped. This is ridiculous enough. The framing device is a man pitching a story to a female editor. This story, set 5000 years in the past of these characters and in our present, is the bulk of the book. The guy writing 5000 years in the future, with most historical records destroyed, manages to get our society exactly right as it currently stands. Why even bother with this? It adds nothing except to make me think that this author has no idea how societies evolve.

So, a 1 rating for simplistic argument, unrealistic framing device, and misanthropic view of humanity with no time for seeing good in anyone.

*I received a free copy of this for review from Netgalley*

Loved the premise of this book. Found it very thought provoking and made me physically cringe so many different times. My only problem was a few of the perspectives. I either wasn’t engaged or just didn’t care about the character and their story line. Solid 3 stars, will definitely look further into the author.

A solid, thought-provoking book! I thought it was a well written sci-fi story that casts a wide net. There are already so many reviews, I'm not sure I can add much that hasn't already been said. Good, not great for me. I really appreciate the free copy.

While the premise of this book is extremely fascinating and long since resulted in a series of other feminist novels, the execution of this one kept me wanting. The many POVs felt a little confusing and I couldn't connect to all the storylines. But the idea of women finally getting the power that they need to take down the patriarchy is very resonating of the times and I just wish this one had lived up to the expectations.

I really enjoyed reading this, but by the end I felt I didn't understand what happened.........................................................................

I was enjoying it for the first 100 pages or so. It became a chore after that. None of the characters were very well-developed to the point that it was kind of difficult to even remember who was who because they were all pretty similar. If you want to read a new book riding the coattails of The Handmaid's Tale hype, I suggest Red Clocks instead by Leni Zumas.

Not a fan. I had very high hopes for this one but the story seemed jumbled. I wish they had focused more on one character and the impact of having this "power".

Young girls start electrocuting people with their hands. Women suddenly have this amazing power and all they can think of to do with it is to be as violent, sadistic and domineering as men have been. Great. This book was not very nuanced or interesting to me so I abandoned it. The premise had potential but I didn't care for the execution. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

In The Power, young women have developed the ability to control electricity. It shifts the balance of power between the sexes and the world begins to come apart at the seams.

It is told from the point of view of a few women and a man. They each have different stories and experiences that Naomi Alderman blends together to create a powerful statement about how we live.

This is one of the most disturbing books I've ever read, but also, most brilliant. It made me think about all of the internal biases I have when it comes to gender, cultural expectations and roles.

Who was it who said: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." This book is an examination of power and how it has shaped the world, not always for the better.

I think book clubs may find plenty to talk about in this book- if they can make it through. There are some very disturbing scenes.

In a time when so many women may feel powerless or voiceless, The Power may speak directly to them. It is, as I've said, a disturbing book, but also a conversation starter.

To quote Victor Hugo: Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come. And, in my mind, it was the perfect time for this book to be written.

As a small woman, I can't remember the last time I was out in public without at least some baseline level of apprehension for my safety. I'm not walking around constantly terrified by any means, but I am just always aware that there's the possibility that I could be anything from verbally harassed to followed to grabbed. Most of my female friends feel the same way. It's just what it means to be a woman in the world. Naomi Alderman's The Power, though, imagines a different world entirely. It begins in the world as it exists, but there's a sudden change: women have developed an organ that generates electricity inside them, electricity they can shoot out through their hands. In a matter of weeks, the world goes from one in which men are the most powerful, physically and otherwise, to one where that balance isn't the same anymore. The Power changes everything.



Alderman explores this new world through four people: Roxy, the daughter of a British crime boss, whose Power is exceptionally strong; Allie, an abused teenage foster child who turns the voice she hears in her head into a new religious movement; Margot, an ambitious politician; and Tunde, the only man, a Nigerian journalist chronicling the changes in the world since the Power emerged. There's chaos, initially. No one knows what to do, what it all means. But things change quickly, all the way from men needing to learn how to protect themselves against violent women, to women dominating the military, to women toppling oppressive regimes. Eventually the storylines all converge in a fictional Eastern bloc country, now ruled by a woman as a dictator, that's the center of a proxy war between the powers-that-be in the old world against those of the new.



This is a fascinating idea to consider, how the world would change if something like what Alderman describes happens. And I think the failure of the book (as you can see from my rating, I didn't think it was especially good) comes from trying to capture too much. Roxy and Allie's perspectives dominate the book, and while I understand why Alderman included Tunde, to give an idea of what it would be like to come of age as a man in the world as we know it and live through the way it changes, I think Margot's storyline was weak and could have been cut to develop Tunde better. There's some good characterization going on with Roxy and Allie (particularly the former), but it's inconsistent, and it seems almost like Alderman was so excited to really dig into what she thought might happen in her new world that she didn't really think about the people who would be living in it beyond broad strokes.



That being said, it's an effective exploration of the way that power corrupts. At first, many women lash out at men in revenge for the ways they themselves have been hurt, which is an understandable reaction. The reader expects it to settle down after a while, after some wrongs have been righted, but it doesn't. Women begin to objectify the men around them, use their superior position to commit emotional and physical violence against them. While it's easy, living in the world we do live in, to imagine that women would wield large-scale power more effectively and humanely than men have and do, Alderman punches through that fantasy by remembering that women are, after all, human, and human beings do not have a great track record when it comes to the way we mistreat each other when given the opportunity to do so. I do think that as a novel, there are significant weaknesses, but as a piece to engage with intellectually, there's a lot to think and talk about here.

Almost overnight, everything changes. Girls suddenly have the ability to send electricity through their hands--they can use this to attract attention, to protect themselves, and even to hurt others. We follow four people as the power dynamic between men and women begins to shift. Margot is an American mayor wondering how this power will affect her political future and the decisions of her teenage daughter. Roxy is the tough daughter of a British gangster, while Allie is a terrified girl who runs away from her abusive foster family to the safety and possibility of a convent. Tunde is a young man in Nigeria whose knack for capturing the right moments catapults him to journalistic fame. The Power is a fascinating look at what it means to have and be in power.

This book is one of the most buzzed-about books in 2017. I heard about it first from my sister who was studying abroad and had the opportunity to read it before it came out in the US. The Power won the Baileys Prize for fiction and is appearing on many "best books of the year" lists. And it certainly is a fascinating idea: what would our world look like if women had a kind of power that men could never possess? How does a female-dominated society operate?

Unfortunately for me, this was one of those books that had a great idea but the execution fell flat. Aldermann gives us four very different perspectives, so we can see what is happening all over the world. This necessitates that we don't get close enough to all of the characters to really want to follow them. Personally, I was really intrigued by just two of them and found myself eager to skim through the other sections to get back to them.

Perhaps one of the boldest things the author does is to show us a world that really isn't that different from our current one. Power corrupts everyone, male or female, and Aldermann writes women who do not hesitate to threaten, injure, rape, or kill to keep their power. While I was intrigued, I found myself wishing for more nuance. Surely some things would be different if women were in power. While I would have loved to read that book, I am fascinated by Aldermann's ideas and look forward to seeing what she writes next.

The Power
By Naomi Alderman
Little, Brown, and Company October 2017
288 pages
Read via Netgalley

Quite the metaphor for how things are going with women right now.

Wow. Just wow. The overwhelmingly good reviews are all justified.

This review is in exchange for a free e-galley from netgalley.com.

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. Naomi Alderman poses the question of what would happen if girls and women suddenly became physically stronger than men, and in The Power, the ability to discharge electricity from their bodies completely overturns the gender power dynamic. Alderman's world is pretty much the world we live in now, except with the genders reversed: men live in fear of being physically assaulted, they are objectified and when assaulted, are accused of "asking for it", they are confronted with the glass ceiling at work and are either relegated to reporting fluff news or having their women co-workers or friends take credit for their work. In many ways, it's a timely and thought-provoking reflection of contemporary society, and a welcome addition to conversations around women's issues.

But at the same time, I can't help but feel the story is too simplistic. Gender power dynamics is such a complex, nuanced subject and I feel a simple power dynamic switcheroo fails to take into account the nuance of women's experiences and the reality of any form of lasting social change. Overturning a long-standing power structure requires an ideological shift, and the mere ability to shoot sparks from one's hands doesn't seem like quite enough. 

The story is told from four perspectives: Allie, a survivor of parental abuse who joins a convent and becomes a Messianic figure called Mother Eve; Roxy, the leader of a British crime family; Margot, a politician rising in power whose teenage daughter Jocelyn struggles to control her own power; and Tunde, a Nigerian photojournalist and only male narrator. The rise of women into power isn't an easy transition, and Alderman does a good job of showing the initial resistance from men, e.g. Margot's political opponent advocating for a 'cure' and Margot's cunning response to position the women's training centres as helping women 'control' their powers. The stories vary in intensity and interest throughout. I personally found Roxy's power struggles against her father and brother to be among the most compelling storylines, and I wish Margot's story had been developed much further. 

Still, I couldn't help but wonder at how easily women all over the world accepted the consequences and benefits of their power. I see how the Catholic Church still keeps some women in the Philippines hesitant to use birth control. I see how women living in abusive situations struggle to leave it behind, even with seemingly strong external support systems. I see how atrocities of the recent past (e.g. Martial Law in the Philippines, slavery in North America) are still glossed over and its effects ignored by some people. And all I can think of is, will superpowers actually make such a difference? Where are the women who are afraid to use their power, who possibly resist using their power for whatever reason? There are some token pieces of resistance in the earlier part of the book, but overall, it seems like most if not all the women in the world Alderman creates are either radical revolutionaries or more measured revolutionaries, with not much room for other forms of responses. 

I wondered if there were women made a conscious decision not to use their powers at all or who set up shelters for men to deal with the psychological impact of the social shift. I wondered about trans women, intersex persons and gender-fluid persons, and if and how the power affected them. I wondered as well about scientists and military strategists of all genders, who somehow couldn't find a defence against electric jolts other than baseball bats and guns. It's possible all these were mentioned in the book in passing, but I wish the stories given prominence had a bit more variety in their responses. 

That being said, there's a welcome catharsis in the book's form of revolution. I especially love that the power is passed on from one girl or woman to another, and than it's the touch of another girl or woman that activates the power in you. It's a wonderful metaphor of women's solidarity being the force than brings about this social change. There's also an especially powerful scene where a young girl delivering food passes on the power to a woman being held captive for sex, and this woman in turn passes it on to the other women held captive with her until they all as a group turn on their captors and become free. I also like the irony in the frame narrative of a male writer compiling the historical research for his female supervisor who then critiques as unrealistic his theory that at one point in history, men actually held more power in society than women did. 

So there's a lot to like in this book, and the concept it explores is interesting. The story itself dragged a bit at times, and I wish there had been more nuance in the stories being told, but otherwise, The Power is a very timely book and I can see why it won the Baileys Prize for Women's Fiction.

Brilliant!

" why did they do it? "
"Because they could."
"That is the only answer there ever is."

"The Power" will be read along with "The Handmaids Tale" for the next millennia. It's a classic.

There is much to think on in these pages. This is not an easy look at power and how/ who it corrupts.

Required reading for all.