The Power

Written by Naomi Alderman

Narrated by Adjoa Andoh

In this stunning bestseller praised as "our era's Handmaid's Tale," a fierce new power has emerged—and only women have it (Washington Post). 

In The Power, the world is a recognizable place: there's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family.

But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: they can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets. From award-winning author Naomi Alderman, The Power is speculative fiction at its most ambitious and provocative, at once taking us on a thrilling journey to an alternate reality, and exposing our own world in bold and surprising ways.

"Captivating, fierce, and unsettling...I was riveted by every page. Alderman's prose is immersive and, well, electric." —New York Times Book Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: Oct 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781478999904

Naomi Alderman

NAOMI ALDERMAN is the bestselling author of The Power, which was the winner of the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. It was longlisted for the 2017 Orwell Prize and chosen as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, Entertainment Weekly and the San Francisco Chronicle. The Power topped Barack Obama’s list of favourite books from 2017 and has been translated into more than thirty languages. Naomi Alderman grew up in London and attended Oxford University and University of East Anglia.

Reviews for The Power

[hazysaffron · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

disappointing

The story’s premise was good and I enjoyed the beginning half of the novel. The whole idea of the patriarchy being turned on its head was great. However, somewhere around the midpoint, the author lost the plot.

[bodachliath · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

So much has already been said about this book that nothing I say will count for much - it has been sitting on my to-read shelf since shortly after the paperback came out last year.

As always I will start with the positives. The concept is nothing if not bold, its sweep is all-encompassing, it undoubtedly made me think and it is not at all difficult to read. The Biblical and historical parallels are cleverly done and it does have plenty to say about real world problems.

So why am I not entirely satisfied. To start with, I struggle with any stories that rely too much on fantasy and supernatural elements. Secondly the simplicity and directness of the language got a bit wearing over the course of 300 pages, and was barely leavened by the occasional King James Bible grammar attributed to the Godlike voice in Mother Eve's head. The characters struggle to overcome their places as ciphers subservient to the needs of the story, and for me the whole thing is just a little too heavy handed.

Others have criticised the framing conceit that the book was written by a man, 5000 years into the post-apocalyptic female dominion instigated by the catastrophic ending, but I thought this was rather neat, in fact it makes some of the stylistic excesses more excusable to place them within the male-dominated thriller writers' mindset, and making him an archaeologist was a nice touch.

So how to rate it? I know three stars seems like a cop-out but to me it seems a fair compromise.

[vdt_melbourne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great read. Couldn’t put it down

[bookwyrmm_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was not really enjoying this until it got to the epilogue, which kinda blew my mind.

[bexaplex · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Power is an historical what-if that posits that a protective agent in World War II prompted women to evolve an electrostatic organ similar to electric eels. Around the time of the present (2017 when the book was published), the world is devolving into chaos and another world war is about to start in the Balkans. Because the meta-book (a staging similar to Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale) takes place thousands of years in the future, we are given to understand that World War III basically turns into Armageddon and the world is reborn as a matriarchy, with exactly inverted gender ideas.

The majority of the care and attention of the book went into very carefully inverting various gender stereotypes. The TV anchor background subplot is particularly hilarious: the male anchor becomes bitter and is forced out, replaced with a younger and handsomer version who complains that math is hard. I thought the characterization was well-done for what is essentially an allegory, but you can tell that character realization is secondary to the theme.

The easy way to interpret the theme is that "anyone in power can be brutal" but there is something more subtle in the letters back and forth about the book's premise that form the meta-book. It is not difficult to construct a justification for women being more violent than men, which makes it obvious how many of our assumptions about gender are made-up nonsense. I imagine that is why there is so much sexual violence (which is difficult to read, I can see why many people find that intolerable, and you have every right to): it brings into sharp focus our ideas about what a perpetrator and a victim look like. There are also a few interesting notes on revolution and history: a lot of context has to change in order for our conception of fellow humans to change, but it can happen in the scope of years instead of decades. The journalists talking about similar wars cite the Iranian revolution of 1979.

[carlgreatbatch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm a bit torn on the rating for this one. I cordially disliked the framing of the story, which I couldn't decide whether it was down to a lack of confidence that the story succeeded on its own merits or just an attempt to jog the reader's elbow that this was serious literature and not just one of those fly-by-night SF books. That said, framing aside, it's better than just a three star book, so here we are.

[rknickme · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to stop thinking about this book.

[sharonmariabidwell · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn’t expect to enjoy this book, although ‘enjoy’ doesn’t feel like the right word. This is a dystopian look to a future in which women develop the ability to emit an electrical discharge, turning almost all women into a walking weapon. The resulting upheaval in societies and cultures all over the world plunge the planet into wars on both the small and large scale. There’s too much in this novel to go into without writing an essay. The meaning may well be different to different people, based on their own biased views. To me, it screams that there is no better or worse, just the corruption of power, and we should all be equal. But, sadly, though likely accurately, this shows that equality also includes all human traits, both good and bad. The book shows what people are capable of, questioning gender equality on a grand scale. It’s thought-provoking, though touches only lightly on a subject that has greater depth than you’ll find here. Some might feel it’s a feminist novel, but it speaks more eloquently of the failures in human nature. Creative and possibly provocative for some.

[jazzbird61 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm still processing this but wishing that I could give it 4.5 stars

[fmclellan-29530 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

One of the most imaginative books I've read in years. I couldn't say I completely understood everything that transpired, especially at the end. May have to reread. But really compelling.

[mahsdad · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Read on audio. A future history written about the world that has to come to grips with a change in the power dynamic when its discovered that young girls start to aquire the ability to generate electricity and they start to wield that power. Men are starting to be put in their place and they aren't happy about it. A sort of religion emerges and the zealots of such are looking to take the world to an extreme conclusion. I've seen the book for several years in stores, but after hearing about the Amazon series they made, it gave me the nudge to pick it up.

[quickmind · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ultimately this book is about the corruption people endure when they hold power. There were some interesting concepts here, but because of the way it was written, I never fully connected with the characters. They felt a little shallow. I think this is a product of the book being presented as someone in the far future's research manuscript. I always felt like I was one or two steps removed from the characters and someone was describing their actions, but not their full emotional spectrum. So I never truly felt invested in them as people. I came the closest to caring about Roxy on a deeper level, but I still never felt truly invested in her story.

I liked the concept of the victors writing the history, and how prehistory is nothing more than circumstantial evidence and hypothesis. The old cliche about those who control the past also control the future rings true here. But back to the main point of the book: absolute power corrupts absolutely. I felt that it was a bit heavy-handed with the violence, but as soon as women gained more power than men in this novel, all of the violence that men did to women in the past, were revisited to them, only more so. The book was not subtle about making its point. Its just too bad the execution of this concept wasn't as solid as it could have been.

[beentsy_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Exceptional.

'Allie says: Then what shall I do?
The voice says: Listen, I'll level with you: my optimism about the human race is not what it once was. I'm sorry it can't be simple for you any more.
Allie says: It's getting dark.
The voice says: Sure is.'

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

First adolescent females and later all females begin developing an electrical power that changes the power dynamics of society as a whole.

[rudyleon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The book itself was interesting. The frame itself was interesting. Together...not a good combination.

[erinclark_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So sorry and diassapointed to see that Power corrupts both sexes. Ugh.

[kylekatz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

2016. In which women gain the ability to zap electricity from their fingers, which changes the whole world to a matriarchy. Which at first seems like utopia, but quickly turns out to be pretty much the same as patriarchy, thus proving that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Disappointing that we can’t do better, but probably realistic.

[burritapal · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic. (I noticed that more than a few men did not like this book, lol.) I wonder if women like me, who have been abused, rate this book higher than those lucky few women who have not been abused? I started writing a short story called"El día de los machos," where, one day a year, you could do violence to a macho and suffer no repercussions. I didn't finish it, so I'm glad that Alderman did what she did here.

What's worse? The patriarchal world we have, where women are oppressed and treated cruelly by men, or some version of what Alderman created here, where something tilts evolutionally, and women suddenly have power over men. Sure, the men wouldn't like it, but who's to say it couldn't work? Women don't have testosterone, which makes men violent and aggressive. Women have nurturing. On the other hand, many women are jealous and competitive with other women. Gender sure does suck.

Nice work, Naomi Alderman!

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A futuristic novel that gave me plenty of food for thought. When women around the world develop a terrifying power - the ability to electrocute with their hands - the global balance of power is radically shifted. Women come into positions of power and the world turns into a different place. This is a book that challenges and questions gender dynamics, and I would highly recommend it for those interested in those topics.

[saimaus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The premise was solid enough, but spelling out the satire explicitly felt a bit patronizing to the reader. Didn't care much for the characters, so when things started (very abruptly) to go downhill, I felt nothing. The world-building was fun, though, which made the book a breezy read.

[luminous4path · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This needs to be a genre. I love seeing roles and expectations flipped on their head. The Power is imperfect and a bit of a slog in the middle, but still utterly worth it.

[Nurse85 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It is a story within another story... Its premise is simple. What would the world be like if women had been the strong sex? Would a matriarchy end up making the same mistakes as patriarchy?
A mix of science fiction and dystopia, the book debates religion, natural evolution, and environmental pollution.
The story is woven by overlapping various characters and parallel stories. Although I found it difficult to get hooked on the reading, I couldn't stop reading the last chapters.
It is a book that a colleague at work lent me and, while I don't particularly like it, it has provided me with a story that is at least curious as I see men as the oppressed, humiliated, violated, and subdued sex.

In the end, in my humble opinion, it is not a matter of genders but of species... And it seems that the human species is not very good, to be honest. (Translated from Spanish)

[thegalaxygirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not sure how to rate this one. At first, I loved the premise, an examination of how physical power leads to political and emotional domination. The author holds a mirror up to society and flips it, portraying the world with gender stereotypes reversed. In that sense it reminded me of Sheri Tepper's Six Moon Dance. But then it kind of went off the rails into extreme violence, and I stopped appreciating it. I'm not sure what the author was trying to say -- that power corrupts? But even in our society, not all men are violent cruel rapists, so why would all women be? I'd like to think that at least some of them would be empathetic, given the treatment they have received in the past. I can see that some women would be out for revenge, but all of them? I guess I'm trying to say I was disappointed that the story wasn't more nuanced. Alderman pays attention to how ancient artifacts are categorized along gender biases, she's very acute in her societal observations, but that acuity doesn't extend to her characters, who end up all being the same.

[jorgeousjotts · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found this disheartening, lol, but good. It reminded me a lot of The Handmaid's Tale, similar ideas of gender and power examined but from a very different perspective. Like examining grey dots on a white background and then swapping out the background for a black one, same dots but you notice different aspects about them in contrast. Well written.

[quenstalof · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this. I enjoyed the premise of the novel and the sort of biblical tone a lot of it had. I think the framing device (a draft of a novel) allowed me to forgive any of the quibbles I had with characterization.

[cmobrien-320565 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lots to think about here. Once I reached the end, I started over again at the beginning. From the very start, "Men Writers" makes more sense, and other things do, too. I don't like to think that power intrinsically makes people unfair and cruel, but this book certainly points that way. The author's note at the end is fascinating, especially that bit about the real artifacts.

[sunyidean · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'd give 3.5 but Goodreads doesn't really do half stars for individual reviews.

Generally speaking, I prefer subtle meta discussions and clear plots. The Power is part of a trend/subgenre of slightly dystopian spec fic that likes to have those things the other way around: very stark meta discussion and less emphasis on tightly-written plots.

Therefore, when I say I find it to be an unsubtle novel (and I do), what I mean is that the moral message as such comes across as very labored to me. The author goes to great pains to be visceral, something else which I feel is slightly trendy these days, and while the descriptions are excellently written, you can definitely have too much of a good thing. A book which wants to discuss the power relationship between men and women, yet is saturated in gratuitous violence and rape, loses the very qualities it requires to field that discussion successfully - those being, nuance and personal devastation.**

That's not a problem per se, just a personal preference. Other people, probably ones who tend to read more crossover/lit lite/contemporary literary, will almost certainly like the novel how it is. And the shock value can be very effective; besides which, everyone will have different opinions on how much is too much. I can only give you mine.

Meanwhile, though there's a lot of good discussion in the book, the plot and pacing are disjointed (from a narrative perspective, I mean). It's hard to remain invested in characters who change so much across the years, particularly when, excepting Allie/Eve, you tend not to see that change occurring, as you only encounter the new version of the characters.

Other people have made Margaret Atwood comparisons and I think that's accurate. My reaction to this is similar to my reaction to the Handmaid's Tale: somewhat over-the-top and labored, with a wavering narrative arc and weak ending (Note: this isn't as wavering or weak as I found the Handmaid's Tale to be, but it evoked a similar sense for me.) There's a sense that sometimes, the violence and rape are being used to spice up the narrative for cheap reaction, or to string it together, and that's not what you want at all - it defies the underlying point of this book.

It's not a bad book. I didn't love it or hate it, but I wasn't wowed by it, and also I really struggled through the early portions. If not for the fact that my book club is reading it I'm not sure I would have persevered, although once it gets going it has interesting things to say.


**NB: I don't know what the technical term would be, but "personal devastation" is how I think of/categorise that crucial reaction whereby a story makes you feel connected to an individual's internal tragedy. So a bland statement of fact might be "John Doe's mother died" but the personal devastation aspect would be bringing John Doe's pain to life. I have very little sense of personal devastation in a novel which features repeated incidences of supposed personal devastation.

[castlelass · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Science fiction dystopian novel that follows the lives of four primary characters to show how the world might change if women were physically stronger than men. In this dystopian future, women have a skein near their collarbones that enables them to conduct an electrical current, capable of inflicting great harm or even death. This novel provides one view of the impact of such a change on religion, politics, crime, education, social mores, families, and culture. It is cleverly concealed in the format of a “book within a book.”

I thought the author came up with an extremely creative premise. I found it engrossing, especially Tunde’s story, which was the only segment from a male character’s perspective. I thought the characters were rather thinly drawn, and the writing style very straight-forward.

The extreme violence against men in this book can be shocking until one realizes that these men are being treated in the same manner that females are currently treated in the real world. Content warnings include: descriptions of slaughterhouse processing, extreme violence (murder, rape, assault, torture), a profusion of profanity, and a variety of sex-related topics.

I found it extremely thought-provoking, though I would not classify it as a pleasant reading experience. Recommended to fans of dystopian fiction and book clubs, as I imagine it could engender strong opinions and interesting discussions.

A role reversal dystopia that provides a rather grim view of human nature.

[Yeyes · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of how the world changed its paradigm. I found it interesting, especially the correspondence between an author and his editor both at the beginning and at the end of the book, very... enlightening. (Translated from Spanish)

[puntofinalpy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Something is happening, alerts are ringing around the world. Teen girls are developing a skill… or perhaps awakening a dormant power? As the news spreads like wildfire, women are helping one another awaken this electrifying weapon and thus start the revolution. This dystopia, although we would have loved for it to be utopian, leaves us with a bitter taste in our mouths. It exposes us to the intoxication and blindness that power generates, the overflow of euphoria, the danger of absolutes. An interesting, captivating, or "electrifying" novel as Margaret Atwood described it, but above all, it invites questioning and debate. (Translated from Spanish)