The Power by Naomi Alderman is reminiscent of some of Margaret Atwood's early writings, and this book begins with the intriguing premise of what might happen if the power balance between women and men were to be reversed.

The novel follows the journey experienced by a set of diverse characters: an orphan girl raised by religious Christian zealots, a politician straining against the limits placed on female ambition, her teenage daughter who's struggling to exercise control over her own fluctuating levels of power, the daughter of a criminal suddenly discovering she's exceptionally powerful, and a Nigerian man who becomes the unlikely chronicler of events as the unthinkable begins to happen all around him.

As girls across the globe start discovering their newfound abilities - yes, even in societies famous for repression like Saudi Arabia, or for trafficking women like Moldova - the structures that hold up the world as we know it begin to crumble. What will replace them is not quite clear yet.

The idea of a reversal in power dynamics between women and men is not entirely new. It was explored by the pioneering Bengali writer Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain as early as 1905 in her short story, Sultana's Dream, and also more recently for example, in Gerd Brantenberg's brilliant novel Egalia's Daughters.

In this story, Alderman explains how experiments related to warfare lead, over time, to environmental changes that affect human biology. As a result, newborn girl babies appear to have a "skein", an additional organ that allows them to control and channel electricity as a weapon - with predictably devastating consequences.

In a world where statistics collected by the United Nations show that almost 60% of the murders of women that take place globally are committed by family members and/or intimate partners, there is a wave of revenge-related action in the wake of this social change that might be expected. What is more disquieting is Alderman's vision of a future in which women in turn become as abusive as the worst male abusers.

That power corrupts is another notion that is by no means new. Lord Acton said this, and said it well, many years ago. So the idea that some would abuse their newfound power is quite rational.

But I found it a little disappointing that this novel doesn't really seem to explore the stories of women who might have reacted very differently to their new abilities, or those who would have used their powers for good. Because in every society, there are always people who do the right thing, no matter what easier choices are available to them in terms of self interest - like the ordinary Germans who sheltered Jews in Nazi Germany, and did so at great personal risk. Likewise, those in many other countries who help persecuted groups. And here, the decision not to actually abuse the women's powers would not even have required taking on the kind of risk that is often involved, or in fact, any degree of real sacrifice.

Overall, the book was an interesting read, and the reading of it went quickly. What will linger for me are some of the little touches in the narrative - including the gradual realisation about the wider implications of this power that dawns on the female politician. And the sheer exhilaration of what it means to live without fear is perhaps the thing about this story that will hit a reader the hardest.

NAOMI Alderman’s latest novel The Power is the unholy child of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream. It is contemporary feminist speculative fiction that asks the hard questions, that never shuts its eyes to the cruelty all humans are capable of, regardless of their gender. It pulls no punches. It’s also a fantastic page-turner, a smart, capable thriller that sensitively handles the coming of age of its young female protagonists as they navigate a world where they are suddenly the possessors of massive power and yet remain in danger because of it.

In a recognisable future, women are at the top of the societal food chain. Gender wars have been actual wars. Glass ceilings have been shattered physically. And when a revolution is literally ignited, passing from woman to woman, setting each aflame with want and need and power, the world evolves into something new, yet somehow no different than what we know of.

The Power is presented as a historical novel by a man in a society run entirely by women, as he attempts to chronicle what may have happened to cause patriarchy to collapse. He speculates of a world in which men were not always the weaker sex, in which perhaps women had not always ruled with the innate power present in their bodies. He sends this book to Naomi, a successful female writer, to ask her advice on the matter, who tells him that perhaps he’d have more luck publishing under a female pseudonym.

Imagining an alternative world in which patriarchy is replaced with matriarchy raises some interesting questions
It’s a clever bookending of the novel, a fun way for Alderman to write herself into the story as a character in a world in which all the traditional issues associated with female writers are now the norm for male writers. The point, of course, is to ask the same question again and again: can there ever truly be a balance of power between genders? “The shape of power is always the same,” Alderman writes. “[I]t is the shape of a tree. Root to tip, central trunk branching and rebranching, spreading wider in ever-thinner, searching fingers. The shape of power is the outline of a living thing straining outward, sending its fine tendrils a little further, and a little further yet. This is the shape of rivers leading to the ocean — the trickles to rivulets, the rivulets to streams, the streams to torrents, the great power gathering and gushing, becoming mightier to hurl itself into the great marine might.”

One day young women all over the world find themselves able to generate electricity with their bodies, specifically via a skein of muscle that lies over their collarbones. In the world of The Power, women find that they, too, have their own version of this brute force. Not just teen women use this electricity; it can also ignite or awaken in older women. Soon, every woman is able to send a jolt of power into whomever or whatever she so pleases — some are able to control it better than others, some are stronger than a dozen women, but inevitably, every single woman the world over, at puberty or beyond, has the ability to generate electricity at will with her body. Not a single one is afraid to use it. Most relish in it, joyous at no longer having to be afraid.

“She cuppeth the lightning in her hand. She commandeth it to strike. There’s a crackling flash and a sound like a paper snapper. She can smell something a bit like a rainstorm and a bit like burning hair. The taste under her tongue is of bitter oranges. The short man is on the floor now. He’s making a crooning wordless cry. His hand is clenching and unclenching. There’s a long, red scar running up his arm from his wrist. She can see it even under the blond hair: it’s scarlet, patterned like a fern, leaves and tendrils, budlets and branches. Her mum’s mouth is open, she’s staring, her tears are still falling.”— Excerpt from the book
Is it a virus? A mutant, evolutionary reaction to a nerve gas? A feminist conspiracy come to life? Witchcraft? Whatever it is, it is first assumed to be short-lived — an antidote to the women’s new-found ability will be developed and life and power balances will return to normal; though of course, who gets to decide what ‘normal’ is? Why must the norm be patriarchy and a male-dominated world?

The Power is told from four perspectives, four protagonists carrying the narrative forward evenly: Roxy the powerful, Allie the holy mother, Margot the politician, and Tunde the journalist, whose career is made when he films a young girl in Nigeria use her power. His is the only male perspective in the novel, a vital one if we are to know how the other half feels. Roxy’s power unleashes when she is witness to a violent crime in her own home. Her father, a London mob boss, takes her on as his right-hand woman, her unlimited ability helping her become a vital part of his dodgy and dangerous business deals. Allie uses her power to get away from an abusive foster family, and by listening to the voice inside her head she is able to take on the role of Mother Eve, gathering dozens of young women under her wing as she creates something more than a cult, closer to a religion based on this great new seismic change in gender balance. Margot finds that her new abilities allow her to take over political office in ways she had not imagined, while her own daughter struggles with the same power. The women’s lives interconnect at some point, though each has her own path to tread, too.

Across the world, women-led states arise. There are sexual revolutions of the violent kind. Men are controlled in the way women have been forever — Sultana’s Dream once again comes to mind, given that the world Hossain created also had the men safely ensconced within walls and removed from all decision-making. It was a perfect utopia for women, but Hossain never ventured into the world of the subordinate men. In Alderman’s novel it is clear that the men aren’t happy and it is exactly because they are now being forced to live the lives women always have. There is still rape and war and gendered crime and murder and domestic violence — it’s just not the men that are committing it. Is it more shocking to see women commit heinous crimes, particularly rape and sexual abuse, than to see men do the same? Why? Because we assume women to be the gentler, milder, nicer gender? Alderman is provocative, bold and ruthless in pointing out that this is an entirely baseless assumption — a patriarchal, sexist assumption.

If women had the brute physical strength to simply take what they wanted, to assume control over all society, to elevate themselves in the pecking order, why do we assume they would be nicer, or more nurturing about it? Why do we assume women in general are gentler or kinder people? Is one gender more prone to violence naturally, or because they have the greater physical power? Armed with the ability to defend themselves ruthlessly, women may well react to the heady mix of absolute power and absolute strength in the same way men always have in extreme situations. Gendered violence, sexism, control over reproduction, and wars would all still exist, says Alderman, only with the flow of control moving in the opposite direction.

Alderman is a writer with many interests and abilities. She’s part of Granta magazine’s ‘Best of’, she’s won the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers, she’s been mentored by Margaret Atwood, she’s been a game designer and is co-creator and writer of the training app Zombies, Run!. The Power is a lightning strike of a novel — bright, fierce, one that will leave you shocked, possibly because its very premise appears to be so simple. In the afterword, Alderman references a pair of images used in the novel, both of which will be familiar to Pakistani readers as two of the best known artefacts found at Moenjodaro. Alderman explains why she chose to adapt and use them as part of her alternative history: “We don’t know much about the culture of Moenjodaro — there are some findings that suggest that they may have been fairly egalitarian in some interesting ways. But despite the lack of context, the archaeologists who unearthed them called the soapstone head […] ‘Priest King’, while they named the bronze female figure […] ‘Dancing Girl’. They’re still called by those names. Sometimes I think the whole of this book could be communicated with just this set of facts and illustrations”. And in that, she’s proved her point.

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.

The framing narrative saved it. The concept is clever but it feels a little shallow. And I felt almost as if it undermined feminism.

The Power tells the story of what happened when teenage girls around the world simultaneously developed an electricity-conducting new muscle (the 'skein'). They could inflict immense pain just by touch, which lead to a sudden and dramatic change in the balance of power. Would the new world order be a more just, equal and fair one? Or would The Power corrupt absolutely?

The Power is told from the perspective of four characters - Tunde, a Nigerian journalism student who finds his purpose in documenting the new revolution; Margot, an ambitious American career politician with a teenage daughter coming into her power; Allie, who reinvents herself after escaping from her abusive foster parents; and Roxy, a tough girl from a powerful London crime family. The novel charts the history of the revolution from its tentative beginnings to its violent conclusions, and is an intriguing, fascinating, important and, yes, powerful tale.

The Power is an intense, thought-provoking take on how society might be if women were afforded more physically destructive power. Filled with feminism and fire, this was a brilliantly written, dark, and thrilling tale. I was captivated by the first page.

I adored this novel and I'm so sorry I didn't fully review it on my website. I've had a rough year and am just catching up with it all. I am adding a link to where I did cover it though.
The whole idea of this novel is incredible and Naomi follows all the paths with great detail and logic. I'm really hoping she goes back to this world because I would love to know more

Since I read The Power (I’m still churning through a review backlog, apologies!) it has famously gone on to become the first science fiction work to scoop the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction. That probably tells you all you need to know about the calibre of this novel – although I’m not sure I would classify it as SF myself (maybe because I think labels are for jam jars, not for books).

“It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t, that she never would. What matters is that she could if she wanted. The power to hurt is a kind of wealth.”

In The Power, something has recently shifted in the dynamic of the world. Slowly, teenage girls appear to be evolving the capacity to inflict agonising pain and even death through their hands. This power can be traced to a ‘skein’, undiscovered as dormant in most older women – although anyone with the power can activate another woman’s skein for her. In a short period of time, the entire dynamic of the world changed. What would happen if women could protect themselves and each other? What would happen if one gender could literally wield huge power over another? How do we see gender dynamics when the power is placed elsewhere?

“One of them says, ‘Why did they do it?’ And the other answers, ‘Because they could.’ That is the only answer there ever is.”

Frankly – I adored this book. It’s been my go-to birthday present to people for months. It doesn’t just flip gender roles, it explores gender based violence; sexual violence; family; morality; organised religion; and military motivation in a systematic way – holding up a dystopian mirror to the reality we live in through a rollicking story focusing on the convergence of a diverse group of young women. I spent the first half of the book thinking “fuck yeah!” and internally high-fiving, and by the second half battling an increasing queasiness as Alderman forces her readers to think clearly about the balance of power. If you haven’t read this one yet – make it your next one.

This is a distinctly feminist dystopic novel (power dynamics are why women are oppressed) but I guess in my heart I didn't want to read a novel where women are so quickly as bad as men are now.

The disturbing factor about the concept at the heart of this book is how much changes when women are suddenly given the means to physically control everyone around them.

The power spreads and the world reacts in a number of different ways, as men find themselves subject to the kinds of assaults and degradation familiar to women the world over.

Fascinating read but I'm giving it four stars because I felt the historical framing shifted the focus away from the human stories we had invested in.

I read the first ~120 pages of this [Bailey’s] Women’s Prize winner and skimmed the rest. Alderman imagines a parallel world in which young women realize they wield electrostatic power that can maim or kill. In an Arab Spring-type movement that kicks off in Saudi Arabia, women start to take back power from oppressive societies. You’ll cheer as women caught up in sex trafficking fight back and take over. The movement is led by Allie, an abused child who starts off by getting revenge on her foster father and then takes her message worldwide, becoming known as Mother Eve. Her sidekick is Roxy Monke, a British gal who’s had her own vengeance on the men who’ve wronged her. Other major characters include Mayor Margot Cleary, whose daughter is one of the first to discover her power, and Tunde Edo, the one central male character, who becomes a citizen journalist on the frontline of the women’s movement.

Alderman has cleverly set this up as an anthropological treatise cum historical novel authored by “Neil Adam Armon” (an anagram of her own name, of course), complete with documents and drawings of artifacts. “The power to hurt is a kind of wealth,” and in this situation of gender reversal women gradually turn despotic. They are soldiers and dictators; they inflict genital mutilation and rape on men. I enjoyed what I read, especially the passages mimicking the Bible, but felt a lack of connection with the characters and didn’t get a sense of years passing although this is set over about a decade. This is most like Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy – Alderman’s debt to Atwood is made explicit in the dedication as well as the acknowledgments – so if you really like those books, by all means read this one. My usual response to such speculative fiction, though, even if it describes a believable situation, is: what’s the point? As with “Erewhon,” the best story in Helen Simpson’s collection Cockfosters, the points about gender roles are fairly obvious.

I can see why the Women’s Prize judging panel went for this one, but it wouldn’t have been my choice.

The Power is a really interesting novel that looks at the way men and woman are viewed and treated in society. In this novel teenage girls discover they have the power to inflict pain through their hands. Society becomes scared and outraged and wants to lock the girls away to protect society but it soon becomes apparent that the girls are awakening the power in older women. Soon all women have the power.

The first half of this book feels very empowering. It’s fascinating to see women going about their lives and knowing that they won’t ever be hurt as they leave a club late at night, who know absolutely that they can protect themselves even if they walk home alone. Suddenly it’s men who are being warned not to walk home alone at night, that are being warned not to behave in a way that may provoke girls with the power.

As The Power goes on Alderman begins to rebut the notion that woman are instinctively nurturing and caring. It becomes a more uncomfortable to read, it is unsettling and at times horrifying. I’ve seen criticism of this book from people who haven’t read it saying that making men victims doesn’t make anything any better. I completely agree with that statement but it’s absolutely not what this book is about. The Power is all about empowering women but then looking at what happens when they have all that power, and just like now, it’s not all good. The power becomes a corrupting force for some of the women, they turn power-hungry and want to be on top at all costs, which is how it is in reality – too much power is always corrupting. I couldn’t understand the motives of some of the characters, I couldn’t identify or sympathise with what some of them did and it was right that this happened. I’ll be honest and say that I was a little concerned that The Power would be a man-hating novel but it isn’t, it really does look at what happens when the people that hold the power lose it, and others gain it. It’s terrifying, but also fascinating.

The novel is framed by letters from a male scholar to Naomi asking her opinion on his latest novel, The Power, and it ends with her thoughts after she read it. The last line in this novel is brilliant, one of the best final lines I’ve read in a long time. It left me thinking for a long time after I put the book down.

This is a fascinating novel, it will really make you think and it’ll stay with you long after you’ve finished reading. I definitely recommend it.

The Power is out now!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a wonderful book.

Alderman has provided an insightful and eye-opening account of our own society by using the power as a metaphor for gender relations in the 21st century. This book astutely profiles contemporary issues through the lens of a fictional dystopia.

The characters are strong, believable and engaging, and the narrative is sublime. The structure used is extremely effective - the letters between the writer and his publisher enhance the story and add further fuel to questions over the reliability of the historical accounts.

The book is excellent.

I was given an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not quite sure how to review this book without doing it an injustice. On the surface, The Power is a brilliant piece of dystopian science fiction. Fast-paced, gripping and extremely dark – this is not one for the faint-hearted.

I’ve heard a lot of people calling The Power a feminist book, though I’m not sure I agree. On starting, the naïve, optimistic side of me hoped for a utopian, if not happy ending. A world where women would finally be equals – equally powerful and equally strong.

Boy, was I wrong.

This book isn’t about equality, rather the complete upheaval of power from one end of the spectrum to the other. This is what happens when the repressed, beaten and raped suddenly gain the upper hand (quite literally). With the power to inflict great pain, or even death, at a flick of the wrist – you can pretty much guess what happens…

Yep. No happy utopian endings in sight.

“It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t, that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted. The power to hurt is a kind of wealth.”

The Power is an intensely absorbing and gripping read. It will suck you in, chew you up and won’t spit you out until the very last page. This book will ruin your life for the time it takes to read it, which turns out not to be very long because you simply won’t be able to put it down.

This novel was thankfully short.
The characters lacked depth and the plot became very weak after a good start.
Disappointing.

This was a really difficult book to review, as the reading experience was very disturbing, at the same time as being empowering and thought provoking.

I didn't know much about this book when I started reading it, so it was great at the beginning to try to work out what was happening and why. I enjoyed following the experiences of the different main characters and found the premise very original.

This book was tense and engaging throughout. It also made me think a lot about gender and the way we treat each other.

I chose this book mainly due to the fact that it would be like a Margaret Atwood and also I thought it would be a possibility for the social private book group I am a member of. I must admit that I took a few attempts to get going with the book . I feel that the concept and storyline could make for interesting discussions . Not an easy read

Violent, visceral and thought provoking, this book has left me with many thoughts and feelings, some which have quite surprised me. An incredibly powerful book, which at times is very uncomfortable to read, but one which should none the less be read. The story rattles along at a great pace, overturning all that we know, or think we know and leaving one wondering if things can ever be better? I don't want to say too much as I think each reader will draw their own conclusions but if you enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale then this will definitely float your boat.

This was not a brilliantly executed book, the closest comparison I can make in terms of writing style is with The 5th Wave. The pacing wasn't great, there were ideas that were over and under explored and the characters were lacking in complexity. That said, the concept was excellent and in terms of science fiction holding a mirror to the modern world this can barely be bettered. There is one astoundingly good chapter right at the beginning, where the male narrator is both threatened and aroused by the newly powerful woman. His confusion if conflicting feelings is without emasculation and the scene is a terrifying vision of role reversal.

Interesting novel that imagines a world where women have physical power over men, with the result that men live in constant fear for their physical safety. The story is told through four very different characters, some more engaging than others. It’s a fascinating premise that doesn’t always deliver – some of the writing and characterisation is a bit clunky. Overall a good page turner.