The Power
Now a Major TV Series with Prime Video
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
THE ICONIC BESTSELLING NOVEL, WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE, AND NOW AMAZON TV SERIES STARRING TONI COLLETTE AND AULI?I CRAVALHO
'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?
'Electrifying' Margaret Atwood
'A big, brash, page-turning, thought-provoking thriller' Guardian
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The Power imagines a dystopian universe where a power has awoken in teenage girls—suddenly they can harm others with a subtle flick of their wrists. This leaves men around the world vulnerable and terrified, setting up a story laced with deftly handled gender and social commentary and provocative, endlessly interesting twists. Naomi Alderman has created a dazzling, disturbing and entirely absorbing world here—she writes her four central characters with wit and emotional force and keeps you on edge the whole time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Alderman's science fiction novel, set all over the world, was awarded the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Sometime in the near future, young women discover they have within them the ability to unleash skeins of electrical current that can maim and kill. One of them, an abused American foster child, joins a group of nuns, reinventing herself as the healer Mother Eve. She promotes a new religion in which Jews look to Miriam, Muslims to Fatimah, Christians to Mary. Her ally is an English crime lord's daughter named Roxy, whose skein is warrior strong, and whose violent family has global connections. Meanwhile Tunde, an opportunistic photojournalist, manages to break the news of several women's revolts across the world. The first upheavals are in Saudi Arabia and Moldova, places where women have few rights. But the woman who rules Bessapara, the first nation of the new world order, is unscrupulous and afraid, and she creates further instability by stripping men in her country of all rights and implicitly threatening world war. Roxy runs into trouble trying to keep a lid on this international situation, while Mother Eve convinces herself it might be for the best to start the world anew. Margot, an American politician taught to tap into her skein by her daughter, rises to power in the States, her message becoming more hawkish as she gains influence. But she is corrupted by her addiction to power over her male rivals, and she, too, plays a part in the endgame. Alderman tests her female characters by giving them power, and they all abuse it. Readers should not expect easy answers in this dystopian novel, but Alderman succeeds in crafting a stirring and mind-bending vision.
Customer Reviews
Zap, Crackle, Pop.
Ooooooooh. I liked it.
Not necessarily all the characters or all the story arcs, but it’s a great idea. The weird, double discomfort reading it, would women really do that? And isn’t awful that men currently do?
Tunde is a great idea to be able to get a set of interested eyes in different parts of the world.
I finished it in a few days, I liked the short, snappy chapters, swapping characters. It was heavy handed in places, but I can forgive that as it kept it short and punchy.
It’s dark. It’s cleverly done. It’s to the point.
There’s bits of me that thrilled at the thought of having ‘the power’ (nothing new there, I’m named after a comic book character and have always wanted a super power.) but F@£&! I’d hope humanity would be better than the author gives us credit for. I hope I’d be better.
It could have been so much better
It was a great concept and storyline, but I didn’t really click with it. It seemed to jump about and there was nowhere near enough to keep you in.
3 starts for the concept!
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