The Power

By now I should know better than to start books with expectations that are too high.

I wanted to know how societies are transformed when women and girls develop strange powers that make them more, well, powerful then men. And that does play a role -- it is just presented in a way I did not enjoy.

The individual parts of this novel take place years apart and seemed disjointed to me. Some chapters consist mainly of dialogues between the protagonists, other are more action-filled, some read like reports. In some cases this could make a book feel more diverse; in this case I found it somehwat tedious to read.

Few of the characters are likable. That may be acceptable, but I also found myself not really caring too much what would happen to them. Ironically, the exception was a male protagonist, which may tell us more about me than about his book.

All in all a fascinating premise, whose execution unfortunately did not speak to me.

Very interesting story. Overall, I really liked the first half of the book that explored the subtle shift in power from men to women and the cultural implications of that shift on an international level. The story went a bit off the rails for me in the later parts when it was obvious this would lead to the fall of modern civilization. It got a bit too "global" to hold my interests.

There were several themes that I struggled with. The obvious flipping the script of pushing terrible acts by women on men because they hold the power, like roaming rape gangs, overt sexual assault, and gender based humiliation I felt was a bit too heavy handed. Almost as if the author didn't trust women to take their own historical context and perspective into account when they suddenly have more societal power.

On one hand, I get it. I understand the message that absolute power corrupts absolutely and women aren't excluded from that and they shouldn't be treated as if they are mankind's savior from the evil men. But I couldn't help but feel that the message that was being provided was "women can't be entrusted with any amount of power over men or it will literally lead to the apocalypse. If women hold societal power, it will literally lead to the apocalypse in under 10 years."

 Over twenty years ago I wondered what the world would be like if all the men died. Think about it. No human males. Women would figure out how to clone themselves or used saved semen for reproduction, but no male would make it past the first month of pregnancy. I'd lie in bed thinking about what buildings, houses and cars would be like after a century or so of the extinction of men. Overall, I couldn't help thinking that the planet would be much better off, and not just because of the reduction in numbers. There are many women who love to floor it and burn rubber now and then, of course, but I doubt that making cars that emphasize this would be a priority in a Detroit without men. Cleaner air, sustainable food sources, low crime.
 The Power reminded me a little of my 1990s bedtime thought experiment. It's about a time when girls and women fairly quickly develop the power to emit electric shocks, like electric eels but on dry land. It quickly changes the dynamic of man/woman relationships and being published in 2016 was great timing.
 As much as I liked it, I found some implausible parts—the fact that men are overall more often handy with guns and other weapons than women are isn't as key a plot point as I think it should be—and it often felt like I was reading a lengthy pitch for a Netflix series. It's not in the Young Adult genre, but the author is good at marketing to the young. As the back cover notes, "She is the cocreator and lead writer of the bestselling audio adventure app Zombies, Run!", a fact that made old me say to myself, "What the hell's an 'audio adventure app?'"
I don't mean to disparage Alderman's writing, though. There are many instances of depth and good writing in The Power:

The sky, which had seemed blue and bright, clouds over, gray to black. There will be a rainstorm. It has been long in coming, the dust is parched, the soil longs for soaking, teeming dark water. For the earth is filled with violence, and every living thing has lost its way. In the north and the south and the east and the west, the water gathers in the corners of the sky.

I read The Power because the concept sounded intriguing and it had received a fair amount of praise. Unfortunately, the book really didn't work for me. I never felt very engaged, found the characters flat and the writing choppy. I read through it quickly not because I was enjoying it, but because I wanted it to be over and in the hope that whatever helped it garner so much praise was just around the corner; it wasn't.

A major problem was the unbelievable rate and cruelty with which the world degenerated. I think this could been balanced by a character that attempted to use the power for good, or at least more subtly. I understand, based on the emails at the end, that this was a man's view of what might've happened in the past and that he probably chose to emphasis the brutality of those events whilst ignoring any more positive behaviour, but this framing device was the choice of the book's author and I think it unfortunately resulted in a poor book.

I knew the basic premise, thought I knew what to expect, but even so this book knocked me over. Surprisingly well developed: Alderman clearly thought the whole thing through. Over and over she tosses in twists that make perfect sense in hindsight, some fun, some very much not, most of them deserving of a pause for the reader to digest, few of them succeeding in that because the tension is so high. It was fun: enjoyable reading, and a memorable worldviewtopsyturvification that keeps me still wondering: what if?

There's a lot to gripe about: the hearing-voices gimmick didn't work for me, and there are rather a lot of eyeroll moments, but none of that mattered. I fell for the characters, fell hard for the story and the what-ifs. Just ramp up your suspension-of-disbelief filter to five or six, accept the wild improbabilities, and move along. Pause and wonder once in a while. Then put yourself to work building a world with fewer power imbalances.

2.5 stars. This book succeeds as a thought experiment but ultimately fails as a novel. The premise — which has been called “feminist” but which I felt was somewhat misogynist — is this: If women magically developed the power to physically dominate men, more powerful than the physicality men have always had to dominate women, then women would become just as corrupt and abusive as some men have been. Everything would be flipped: Men would become the victims of sex trafficking, violent rape, slavery, etc. The problem is that it’s just not believable. A world with women in charge would certainly be different, but not in the way the author describes. Worse, from a literary perspective, the women in the novel are all one-note and meant to illustrate a particular type (mobster, warlord, etc.) rather than to succeed as fully-developed characters. It’s telling that the only complex and sympathetic character (Tunde) is a man.