Books › The Power
Women's Prize for Fiction 2017
The Power
460 pages
An electrifying, provocative thought experiment that flips the script on gender and power, leaving you breathless and deeply unsettled.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like watching a spark ignite a global powder keg. It begins with a rush of exhilarating liberation, offering a deeply satisfying fantasy of flipped power dynamics that quickly accelerates into something far darker and more complex. The prose is sharp, visceral, and often brutal, pulling you through a propulsive narrative that spans the globe with a documentary-like urgency. As the atmosphere shifts from triumphant to dread-soaked, the story forces you to confront uncomfortable truths about human nature and the inherently corrupting force of absolute dominance. It is a tense, unflinching experience designed for readers who love speculative fiction that doesn't just ask 'what if,' but pushes that question to its most terrifying, logical extreme.
- Mood
- tense
- electrifying
- dread-soaked
- unsettling
- Tone
- cynical
- visceral
- provocative
- unflinching
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- gender dynamics · corrupting nature of power · systemic oppression · bodily autonomy · revenge versus justice
- The writing
- Sharp, occasionally journalistic, and viscerally descriptive, driving the narrative forward with brutal efficiency.
- The arc
- Starts with a spark of exhilarating liberation that slowly twists into a horrifying realization of absolute corruption.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave dark, thought-provoking speculative fiction that holds a harsh, unflinching mirror up to contemporary society.
Content notes
- graphic violence
- sexual assault
- torture
- misogyny
- body horror
About the book
'She throws her head back and pushes her chest forward and lets go a huge blast right into the centre of his body. The rivulets and streams of red scarring run across his chest and up around his throat. She'd put her hand on his heart and stopped him dead.' Suddenly tomorrow or the day after girls find that with a flick of their fingers, they can inflict agonizing pain and even death. With this single twist, the four lives at the heart of Naomi Alderman's extraordinary, visceral novel are utterly transformed, and we look at the world in an entirely new light. What if the power to hurt were in women's hands?
Description from Open Library.
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