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A review by ibadella
The Power by Naomi Alderman
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
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Violence, Rape, and Sexual violence
Moderate: War and Trafficking
Minor: Racism and Ableism