Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - The Power

Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Power by Naomi Alderman

159 reviews

luseor_'s review

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dark tense medium-paced

Loveable characters? No

3.0

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xabbeylongx's review against another edition

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challenging tense slow-paced

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

1.5

Spoilers Ahead:

So, I can’t lie to you, this book started off in a promising way. I really liked the premise of the book, and, as I said, the beginning had me thinking the story had a lot of potential, however, I found the end just dragged a lot, and it took away from the enjoyment of it. We were asked to read it for university, for my science-fiction module, and it was definitely an experience.

We follow a multitude of POVs in this book. We start off following Roxy, as two men break into her home. She is knocked unconscious, and they murder her mother in front of her, and she finds out she’s actually able to produce an electrical charge with her hands. She can hurt the men, but that doesn’t stop them from doing that Bernie, Roxy’s father, gets revenge on the two men, though Terry (Roxy’s brother) is lost in the fight. Roxy uses her powers to kill Primrose, who is actually the leader of the gang.

We move onto Tunde, who first experiences a girl’s power when Enuma, a girl he was fooling around with, shocks him. He’s aroused and afraid, so he films various women and sells the footage to various news networks.

Margot is the mayor of an unnamed city, and she’s trying to learn about power. She discovers that only girls have it, and it comes from a muscle called skein. She also finds out that Jocelyn, her daughter, has it, and, after asking her daughter to shock her, she finds that she has it too. She proposes training camps, to help young girls use their power more safely. Daniel, the governor, is furious she went over his head, but she receives a lot of support. They suggest that she run for something more ambitious. And as she realises that her power is her wealth, she lets Daniel speak to her rudely less and less, because she knows how easy it could be to kill him.

Allie is the youngest of our main characters, and she also has the power. Her foster father repeatedly TW beats and rapes her, and one day she snaps. A voice in her head is telling her to use the power to kill her father. She then runs away to a convent, where she tells everyone to call her Eve. She begins to start controlling her power, and performs miracles for the people. She somehow cures a girl’s epilepsy, and so they believe a divine being is speaking to her. Allie creates a new religion and baptises a few of the girls. This religion believes God is a woman, and focuses on women in religion. One of the nuns doesn’t believe it, and she is killed immediately. The new religion takes the convent under the new religion.

Tunde travels over the world, to where enslaved women start to spark power in each other, in an effort to kill the people who are mistreating them. Viktor, the President of Moldova, mysteriously dies of a heat attack, so his wife is then appointed as interim leader. However, she declares a new nation: Bessapara.

After killing Primrose, Roxy has been lying low, and meets Eve. Roxy has more power than anyone she’s ever met, and they become good friends. Roxy, after returning to London, creates a new drug called Glitter, which enhances the strength and duration of women’s power. Eve’s followers help to produce it, and Tatiana uses it to fuel the army she’s curating to go against the Moldovans.

Tunde travels some more. Women everywhere are waking up their power, and are trying to gain rights. Someone tries to TW rape him, but she is pulled off of him at last minute. He interviews a man secretly trying to orchestrate terror attacks against women. He believes that only a few men are needed for reproduction, and the rest they will kill.

Margot does indeed run against Daniel. He insults Jocelyn, and she shocks him accidentally. She thinks that people will be upset, angry and scared, but she wins the position! Jocelyn is sent to one of the camps, because she can’t control her power; sometimes, she even has none, and is bullied a lot for it.

Roxy’s other brother, Rickey, is TW raped and castrated by some women, and she and Darrell (the last brother, thankfully) go and teach the three girls some manners. They tell her that ‘Ricky was asking for it’. They end up with a lot of facial scars. Roxy finds out it was actually Bernie, her father, that got her mother killed. Roxy and Darrel threaten heir dad to force him to retire, so Roxy can take over the business.

Four years on, war is still happening in Bessapara. Tatiana invites Margot, Eve, Roxy and Tunde to incite support for Bessapara. Eve cures Jocelyn, and her power problem is fixed. Tatiana and Margot make a mutually beneficial deal. Tunde and Eve see Tatiana force a young man to lick win (and the broken glass it was in) up from the floor.

Roxy goes to a business meeting Darrell has set up, but when she arrives, she is knocked unconscious and her skein is removed, and inserted into Darrell (a plan proposed by Bernie). She runs into the forest, and hides. Darrel talks over the Glitter production, telling them she is on vacation, and not revealing he has her skein.

Meanwhile, Tunde is upset by the unjust laws in Bessapara. They are limiting men’s travel, saying you need a female ‘guardian’s’ permission to go out, and, if broken, they are punishable by death. Tunde is terrified he’s going to be killed. He reads his own obituary in the paper, and finds out the Nina – an ex flame and the one who he was sending his reportings to – has stolen his stuff, published his book without crediting him, and faked his death. He is captured by a group of women when fleeing, but he befriends Roxy. They are attacked by another group, and then they make love.

Eve is trying to figure out how to stay dominant over men. She uses her powers to manipulate Tatiana’s arm, so she slits her own throat, and Eve takes over as leader of Bessapara.

Darrell tries to kill Jocelyn with Roxy’s skein, and he ends up being ripped apart. Roxy helps Tunde to escape, and meets up with Eve. Eve wants to start a war, which Roxy tells her is crazy, and soon leaves. Upon hearing of Jocelyn’s misfortune, Margot decides to aid Bessapara, as she, too, thinks that society should be stripped down and rebuilt. It finishes with the implication that women are in charge, and they all look up to Eve as their religious figure.

So, it’s a lot to take in, right? I have to be honest, I did have to look up the plot afterwards to actually work out what had happened. I didn’t really get attached to any of the characters, which I suppose works well with the genre and the plot of the story, but I do like it when there’s at least one character I like, or at least I can relate to. I didn’t feel like any of the characters there were particularly enjoyable to read or learn about, but maybe that’s all part of the science-fiction genre (that’s insulting to all science-fiction books, so I take that back). So, as I said, I’m not really a fan of books where I don’t understand what’s happening, or books where I don’t like any of the characters, so that’s why I procrastinated finishing it.

Starting off with the plot itself; as I’ve said many times before, I do think it was a solid idea for a novel, but the execution just wasn’t there. Some of the characters didn’t need to be there, and it was just an unnecessary extra amount of text which didn’t add anything to the plot. Jocelyn, for example; she didn’t become a developed character, she just became a character that Margot needed to give her a maternal instinct. Personally, I didn’t think it was worth it, unfortunately.

The ending in itself was also a bit of a let down. I think that there were also several points before it where the story could have been ended. After a certain point, it just seemed to drag on. Which is incredibly annoying, because I actually thought the opening to the novel was very strong, and it had a lot of potential. I was excited to see where they book could have ended up.

At some points in the book, I didn’t know if there were still points, also, that men were favoured over women (I don’t think the writer meant to do this, but when it’s ingrained in you and you’ve grown up with that mindset, sometimes you unknowingly contribute to the problem) but it could be I’m not understanding properly. As I said, there were more points where I didn’t know what was going on than when I did, so that doesn’t help.

Additionally, there was an unnecessary amount of TW violence and sexual violence throughout the book, and it sometimes could be a little uncomfortable. Obviously, that is something that is prevalent in everyday life, but it was sometimes a bit too much. I wouldn’t like to say that is doesn’t further the plot, because we know that dire situations require drastic action, but it just made me a little uncomfortable at times.

Overall, I’d say the book just drags on a little too much, for not a lot really happening. It’s such a shame, because I did really want to like the book, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t one of the greatest.

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vivikasweiven's review

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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thalia16's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark 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? Yes

4.0

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bibliobaggins_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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ktbeepboop's review

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Graphic SA scene with a minor.

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ile94's review

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dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Read it in Italian. A dystopian story with interesting points of reflection on our concept of society, gender disparity and power (ab)use. I found some common elements with The Handmaid's tale (Margaret Atwood). In general, very recommend.

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