Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Power

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Power by Naomi Alderman

93 reviews

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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lhartjed's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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ren_dragon's review against another edition

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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

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sallytiffany's review

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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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sophieennis's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense 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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samdalefox's review

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adventurous challenging dark sad 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? No

5.0

Top line summary: feminist, sci-fi, dystopian, hard hitting deliciousness. This book takes a hard look at the current power structures of the world through a gendered lens, then unravels what could happen if that gendered power was inverted, and to a lesser extent subverted. It reminded me of that quote "be grateful women only want equality, not revenge". Although clearly a feminist book, the failures of the human condition irrespective of gender are also highlighted. The end 'chapters' (an email exchange outside of the main story narrative) were particularly satisfying in this respect. It's also important to highlight that this book, while excellent in my opinion, is a little dated in its feminism. There's no great care exploring sex vs gender (biologically or socially), no clear attempt to include intersectionalism, and no mention of non binary or trans people.

I've quoted ryanjaydavidson's review below because I largely agree with it and think it's an apt summary:

"The concept of this book is brilliant, and there are a multitude of allegories, symbolism and inversions that hit you like a tonne of bricks throughout. However, while it starts strong and the action is consistently ferocious, it’s clumsily executed as a whole piece and scuppers momentum at various key stages of the narrative. A lot of comparisons have been made to the speculative fiction of Margaret Atwood, but for me it lacks the rumbling sense of dread that is so prevalent in Atwood’s work."

Despite its flaws, I'm still giving this 5 stars because it caught my interest and compelled me to keep reading. The violence in, althoughddifficult to read, never felt gratuitous. I was completely hooked and invested. This is a wonderful book to start conversations about many different aspects of feminism, sexism, and misogyny.

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