I was really looking forward to The Power by Naomi Alderman for a long time once I heard about it. I was so jealous of my friends across the pond who got to read it before it even won the Bailey’s Prize, and after it won, I was DYING to get my hands on it! I love dystopias and alternative futures, so I had a feeling this would be right up my alley. 

I wasn’t wrong! I got to read this book a bit sooner than many of my fellow US friends after I begged Little Brown to send me an early copy and they kindly obliged. 

The Power begins when girls suddenly start developing, well, the power, where they can basically electrocute people with their bare hands. The book follows a few people (mostly women) around the globe as the sudden change occurs. We meet Roxy, an absurdly “strong” (in the sense of the power) teen and the daughter of a prominent British gangster. Allie is a young victim of abuse who runs away to a convent and hones her craft like nobody else, and she soon gains a cult-like following. Tunde, a Nigerian student, starts documenting the change and quickly becomes a leading and trusted journalist. Margot, a mayor of a city in the US, has her power awakened by her daughter whose power is unpredictable and unreliable. 

Each chapter follows one of the characters, and the book takes place over a few years, with massive social change happening across the globe as women begin to rebel, form militias, and generally take control. One particular interesting part for me was the story of Tatiana, the former wife of the Moldovian president (who seemingly and somewhat suspiciously dies of a heart attack) who rises to power and forms a new country ruled by women. The book doesn’t focus on Tatiana except as a background character to the main characters. I would have liked to know more about Tatiana and her perspective. 

The women in this book are angry and violent and commit unspeakable acts of violence against men as they gain complete control of the world. I don’t know if I buy that this is how things would go if something like this happens, but, it worked as a sort of action-movie story and I was definitely sucked in. 

This book is fast moving and was engrossing for me. I think it would make a great TV show. I understand and agree with some of the criticism of this book, but despite some flaws this book really worked for me as a piece of entertaining fiction. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys dystopias!