Book Review: The Power - N. Alderman

"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."

Such a different book! Just from reading the plot I probably would have not picked it up, it sounded sci-fi to me and that's not my genre. However, I am glad I read it.

It is not sc-fi, not a thriller, it is very difficult to define it in a genre, it is a novel about terrorism, about power but the roles are inverted, generally are men that kill, use their force and power to try and take over the world. In this case it's women! Women who have a new power and become crazy about it, they use to become queens of the world, to start a new cult, to take revenge on men, to do to men what they used to do to them.

It is quite a scary plot, of course it won't happen, but it does happen now, without "the power" that terrorism take over whole countries and brutal acts are carried on men and women.

The novel is told by five main different characters, each of them affected by this new power in different ways, each of the them finding their new self in this change environment.

A book really worth reading, different and strange and fast paced. Fascinating to read about eels and their powers, and more so fascinating to read about how power go to the head of a lot of people and change them into animals.

"Nothing special has happened today; no one can say she was more provoked than usual. It is only that every day one grows a little, every day something is different, so that in the heaping up of days suddenly a thing that was impossible has become possible. This is how a girl becomes a grown woman. Step by step until it is done."

Overall rating:  7,5     Plot: 7,5     Writing style: 7      Cover:  6

Title: The Power

Author: Naomi Alderman
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Pages: 352
Publication year: 2016

Plot:

All over the world women are discovering they have the power.
With a flick of the fingers they can inflict terrible pain - even death.
Suddenly, every man on the planet finds they've lost control.

The Day of the Girls has arrived - but where will it end?

The Author:

Naomi Alderman grew up in London and attended Oxford University and UEA. In 2006 she won the Orange Award for New Writers. In 2007, she was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, and one of Waterstones' 25 Writers for the Future. 

Her first novel, Disobedience, was published in ten languages. Penguin published her second novel, The Lessons, in 2010 and her third novel, The Liars' Gospel, in August 2012. Her new novel, The Power, will be published at the end of October 2016. All of her novels have been chosen for BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime slot. 

Her prize-winning short fiction has appeared in Prospect, on BBC Radio 4 and in a number of anthologies. In 2009 she was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award.

From 2004 to 2007 Naomi was lead writer on the alternate reality game Perplex City. She's written online games for Penguin, the BBC, and other clients. In 2011 she wrote the Doctor Who tie-in novel Borrowed Time. In 2012, she co-created the top-selling smartphone fitness game and audio adventure Zombies, Run!, which is a market leader and has been downloaded millions of times. 

Naomi broadcasts regularly, has guest-presented Front Row on BBC Radio 4 and writes frequently for the Guardian. She is one of the presenters of Science Stories, a programme about the history of science on BBC Radio 4, as well as presenting many one-off documentaries. 

Naomi is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, has been mentored by Margaret Atwood as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, and in April 2013 she was named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in their once-a-decade list.