Reviews with content warning for Trafficking - The Power

This book was truly mind numbing.
It was political, a world in crisis. Gender wars like never seen before yet in its writing reflections to past global crisis and breaks in a light I’ve not read before.

It has conversations of Zionism, UN conflict, gangs/militia , war zones, media in war and more.

It also has religious crisis, drugs crisis and family betrayal, leading some of our main characters jos, Roxy and allie on crazy pathways over the years this book takes place.

One becomes a warrior of state, another like a new Jesus known as “mother eve”, and another with huge family gang affiliations.

This was such an interesting read, set out like a transcript exchanged between two friends/authors, riddle with religious/historic artefacts as if this tale is a break from history trying to be understood.

I picked it up due to intrigue of the women having power and the men not but besides the expected misogyny from the men unhappy they don’t have power I couldn’t have predicted anything that was going to happen in this book and was thoroughly wrapped up by it.

I would most definitely reccomend this to anyone looking for a unique, intriguing read and look forward to trying out Naomi’s amazing writing again in future.

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surelyyoujess's review

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adventurous challenging dark reflective slow-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

3.75

Content Warnings

ljp817's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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haileearynn's review

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challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Thought-provoking and well-written. But not something I particularly enjoyed reading due to the dark storyline and reminders of real-world injustices that left me angry and upset throughout much of the book. Glad I read it, but probably not one I would ever read again.

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ibadella's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional 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

4.5

wow this was really disturbing! what made it all so horrid was of course that none of it is invented, and every horrible instance was at the same time so deeply familiar

i am really impressed by how the author takes a super simple and not unexplored idea and really sees it through

the pacing of the story was artful, the gradual unraveling of plot and character development made the truly violent moments doubly jarring.

there were a few things i wish had been explored more within the scope of the book but i understand that the book does an excellent job distilling a vast number of issues into a fairly short narrative

particularly i wish there’d been a little more challenging of the biological essentialism (it’s explored a bit through certain characters) but i sort of get it because of the biological anthropology framing. we still get a very deep implicit understanding of the cultural construction of gender and its binary understanding as a defiance of biology and lived reality.

i should say i read this mostly at night before bed and it gave me very icky scary nightmares near the end

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