I really wanted to like, “The Power” by Naomi Alderman. The premise is really interesting – teenage girls in our present time suddenly regain the ability to produce electric shocks and are able to transfer this power to some adult women as well. The book explores gender and what would happen if women were suddenly given a great physical power over men. It was set in our modern time, and so felt relatable in that way, but I was repeatedly confused and couldn’t seem to connect with any of the characters. The three female main characters and one male main character bored me. Their stories also bounced around too much and I sometimes couldn’t follow what was going on. Thank goodness the narrator of the audiobook used different voices when reading the different characters or I may not have known whose story we were following and would have been even more lost.

I did enjoy the themes of the book and wish it had been executed better. While I found the character of Neil at the beginning and end of the book an interesting concept, it made me feel like the actual story was just a story. It pulled me out of the fictional universe and reminded me I was reading a book within a book. I will say though, that when I realized who the “Naomi” character was and what she did with Neil’s work (literally the last sentence of the book), I was happily surprised.

My wish would have been to explore this alternate universe from the point of view of one character rather than four. I would have enjoyed more of the personal conflicts rather than the political and gangster conflicts and torture scenes. I also would have preferred fewer time jumps as these made the story move too quickly for me. The beginning of the book was great, and it steadily went downhill from there.

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Created May 16, 2020 at 5:02pm • Submit your own review...