Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Power by Naomi Alderman

77 reviews

pocket_mouse's review

dark reflective tense medium-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Rape, Sexual assault, and War

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Violence, Kidnapping, and Religious bigotry

eve_o's review against another edition

adventurous challenging fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Drug use, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Murder, and War

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Torture, Blood, Kidnapping, and Death of parent

Minor: Excrement, Trafficking, and Alcohol

ana_bane's review

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: Rape, Trafficking, and Murder

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, Violence, and Blood

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

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

puffinnaomi's review

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

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

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

Moderate: Police brutality

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

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