Book Review: The Power; Naomi Alderman.

This book has caused such a stir, not only in the book community but also within my friendship group. Some people have hailed this as the biggest triumph of the feminist literature world, while others have said it's a total, catastrophic failure. I think my biggest disappointment was that I didn't really HAVE a reaction to this book other than mild enjoyment.

SOURCE: Borrowed
TYPE: Paperback

TITLE: The Power
AUTHOR: Naomi Alderman
SERIES: --
PUBLISHER: Penguin
PAGES: 341
GENRE: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Adult

RATING: 3.5/5 Stars

Blurb:
Suddenly - tomorrow or the day after - girls find that with a flick of their fingers, they can inflict agonizing pain and even death. With this single twist, the four lives at the heart of Naomi Alderman's extraordinary, visceral novel are utterly transformed, and we look at the world in an entirely new light.

What if the power to hurt were in women's hands?


What I Liked:

• Alderman writes really well. Honestly, I never exactly found myself bored with this book. The pacing and plot development were well structured and I liked the inclusion of diagrams, letters, etc. in order to build the world and make things more interesting. I also liked a couple of the POV characters, particularly Roxy and Alison. I found their viewpoints the most interesting and 'out there'!
• The world-building was actually pretty cool and I found it so amazing how Alderman could take a woman's present day reality and turn it on it's head to make it sound so dystopian when it's happening to men. The fact that male news anchors had to be young, attractive and not have too many opinions? The increase in male rape and victim blaming? The bullying/peer pressure that took place when a girl's power was weak or they didn't use it? These are all obvious mirrors to what happens in our own society and I thought that they were very clever!

What I Disliked:

• I guess the most disappointing thing for me was the detachment I felt from everything that happened. There were of course a lot of shocking twists but none of them blew me away and I honestly felt that some of them didn't particularly add to the plot. I didn't totally love all of the POV characters either, and I found Margot's chapters particularly uninteresting.

Overall Conclusion:

I'm all for reading a cleverly pieced together book, which is what this was. It took a totally different view on feminism and how to portray the everyday struggle of being a woman. It was filled to the brim with intelligent commentary, parallels and symbolism. But it didn't make me feel anything and I wanted that from this book most of all, for better or for worse.