A review by paulawind
The Power by Naomi Alderman

challenging dark emotional tense fast-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

This book is awful.

Don’t get me wrong, from a technical pov it’s great - the language, pacing, structure, how it plays with your emotions throughout it - all 10/10. The problem I have here is that it is overbearingly hopeless. I haven’t felt so miserable reading a book since The Painted Bird. All this unnecessary and excessive violence, mindless evil - all of that made me literally physically sick, with tears running down my face on public transport, and being unable to continue reading, especially in the second part of the book. My stomach was twisting, I couldn’t eat anything, this book is haunting my dreams. I am not unfamiliar with dark literature, my favourite authors are 19th century Russians, but this level of universal evil drains clean whatever hope I had in humanity.

We’ve got Tunde and Allie is biracial, but I would argue that the dystopian claim the author is making is very much influenced by Lord of the Flies and Stanford Experiment, especially that it shares the same fallacy of being based on analysis of one demographic - overwhelmingly White Westerners (most of them middle class) - we don’t get any perspectives on how the power changed occurred anywhere but Europe and US, side from brief description of Saudi Arabia and India in early stages.
I know what the author wanted to do, show us the spin of gender power, where it can lead, and that in the end gender is not a determining factor for violence, but the physical domination one holds over the other. I do get that, yet I refuse to believe that human beings are irreversibly and inherently driven to enjoy subjugating others and exploiting their power. Maybe I’m just young and have the shreds of hope left, and the life will show me that Naomi is right. I hope not. I really do.
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