Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Power by Naomi Alderman

75 reviews

ana_bane's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Because the book covers a significant timespan and a pretty large cast of characters, I had to constantly flip back and remind myself where certain characters had left off. In the second half of the book especially, the intersecting plot lines get more elaborate and entangled, so it takes diligence to keep track of it all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Sexual violence, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Murder, Rape, and Trafficking

thepermageek's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Torture, Blood, and Violence

Minor: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Trafficking

thelizzielibrary's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Well, this will certainly give you food for thought. It was all sorts of fucked up and terrifying. It will live in my mind forever. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Excrement, Gore, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Addiction, Antisemitism, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Trafficking, Violence, and War

auberginehayz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Audio book

I went for 3.5 stars but it was almost a 4! I would recommend it strongly but with caveats because of graphic/disturbing content.

The first two thirds of the book were amazing. Such a good concept, compelling and with scenes that were gripping and really resonated. Then it went chaotic and grim in a way that I couldn't tell if was poor pacing or meant to have that shocking and confusing effect on the reader. Then it wrapped it up nicely at the end in a reasonably satisfying, if pessimistic, way. The grim stuff was depressing because I wanted to root for some of the characters, I didn't want so many of them to end up behaving terribly. But maybe humanity would be that terrible.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, Body horror, Child abuse, Rape, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Violence, and War

puffinnaomi's review against another edition

Too violent. I understood where the story was going, the point was clear.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

wanderinginthewoods's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Drug abuse, Genocide, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual harassment, Torture, Death, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Slavery

scruffie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed reading this one, though the entire book is nightmare material (content warnings not to be taken lightly). Great pace, very tense, and adventurous. It draws attention to many social discrepancies and is full of female viewpoints and characters, which, in and of itself, felt refreshing.

That being said, I didn't appreciate the book's binary view on gender, the conflation of sex and gender, and the complete disregard for the multitude of gender identities; in this book "male" equals "man", "female" equals "woman", and that's all there is to it. Also, I had hoped that the book will have a more positive stance towards society; I've had my fill of the whoever-has-the-bigger-stick-must-oppress-whoever-has-the-smaller-stick point of view. That's alright though, I think the author delivered the narrative they chose pretty successfully.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Medical trauma, War, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Drug use, Physical abuse, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Police brutality

Minor: Infidelity, Pregnancy, Vomit, Excrement, and Trafficking

sinsku's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Good: the characters and character building. 

Bad: very transphobic with the "it's biological" idea of the power. At least it's not discussed in the book at all beyond that. So. Plus didn't care much about the fact that the book seemed to tell the tale of "if women have power they abuse it and there's nothing you can do about it". A rather boring take on it to be honest. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Blood, Death, Rape, Torture, Violence, War, Body horror, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

sallytiffany's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

It started off really good and had a good premise but quickly became religious and political. Not a bad book when read for school but not one I would read for pleasure. I also really didn't like the ending. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Gore, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Emotional abuse

Minor: Body horror, Excrement, and Domestic abuse

riffmonkey's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I hated it. First of all the whole premise and story is, I think, wrong already. The historical pieces supposedly found would say that this isn't a new thing. So then the whole patriarchy and all that should have already evolved and shaped differently. Also, the fact that this would result in reverse sexism is stupid, unrealistic and bad. Not to mention something I don't want to read about. 

The characters were boring and the worldbuilding was worse. This is trying so hard to make some sort of point and comparison to the real world that it just makes no fucking sense in the story. Choices that are made to show something supposedly meaningful but really it just makes no sense for the world and the characters. 

Conclusion; fuck this, fuck this world, reverse sexism would never happen and is stupid. I hated it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Kidnapping, and Misogyny

Minor: Rape