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A review by genevieve_and_her_books
The Power by Naomi Alderman
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Graphic: Rape, Trafficking, Torture, Sexual violence, Violence, Sexism, and Murder
Moderate: Drug use
While Naomi Alderman is certainly a talented writer, and there was an interesting premise to this, it was a little too gender essentialist for my liking. Although she nods in the direction of gender being a construct, she also appears to be writing a world in which the 2SLGBTQIA+ community doesn't exist, which feels like a somewhat egregious oversight given the themes. I also just don't buy the premise of how the development of skeins occurred; had me down a Google rabbit hole about water tables and the human genome and how many generations for new traits to evolve... which, safe to say, took me out of the story. I found the first two thirds to drag quite a bit, but the final third very much grabbed me and I read it very quickly.
TL;DR, great idea, middling execution.