”For a moment he thought of banging on the door, of saying: Please. Help. But the thought of the darkness that might be behind those lit windows kept him from asking. The night was filled with monsters now.”



Oh boy, this is such a tough one to review. I finished “The Power” about a week ago and I still feel so conflicted about it all. A world in which women suddenly get the ability to create electricity and can use it however they please? It sounds so intriguing, right? It was so promising but t

”For a moment he thought of banging on the door, of saying: Please. Help. But the thought of the darkness that might be behind those lit windows kept him from asking. The night was filled with monsters now.”



Oh boy, this is such a tough one to review. I finished “The Power” about a week ago and I still feel so conflicted about it all. A world in which women suddenly get the ability to create electricity and can use it however they please? It sounds so intriguing, right? It was so promising but the way it was executed? I really don’t know. ..



Don’t get me wrong, this book was very enthralling and I always wanted to know what would happen next but I just didn’t like how it all played out in the end. I’m sure by now you’re asking yourself: Why not, Ginny? What happened?! And I’ll try to give you a proper answer. Here’s the short one: The women in this book happened! >_<



Not good enough? Okay, let me elaborate. XD



”There are men trying to drag their women from the glass. And there are women shrugging off their hands. Not bothering to say a word. Watching and watching. Palms pressed against the glass. He knows then that this thing is going to take the world and everything will be different and he is so glad he shouts for joy, whooping with the others among the flames.”



This was from Tunde’s POV and truth be told, he was the only character I liked in this book and could relate to. Yes, you read right: “he”. Tunde is a boy and at the beginning he’s happy that women got this kind of power. In fact he’s one of their biggest supporters. He’s taking interviews, he’s trying to understand them and he’s helping them as best as he can by keeping the world informed. Tunde is a reporter and a damn good one at that! ;-) He stayed neutral in a time everyone else took sides and even though his goodwill was tested quite often, he never gave into the temptation of siding with one of the bigger parties. Not even with UrbanDox who is a man and has rather extreme opinions about how women should be treated in future.



”We need laws to protect men. We need curfews on women. We need the government to release all the funding they need to “research” that cure. We need men to stand up and be counted. We are being ruled by fags who worship women. We need to cut them down.”



It sounds violent, doesn’t it? But looking at it in retrospective I almost find myself agreeing with UrbanDox though. AND THAT, is exactly the reason why “The Power” messed so much with my head. Aside from Tunde there are four other female POVs and they are all in a position of power and don’t even hesitate to take advantage of it. They are corrupt, they are brutal and they misuse their power in the worst way possible. No matter whether it is Senator Margot Cleary, Tatiana - the president of Bessapara, Roxanne Monk or Mother Eve. Each and every one of them is on a reckless mission and there is no room for compassion.



”Much injustice has been done, and it is the will of the Almighty that we gather together to put it right.”



The things that happen in this book! *shakes head* I like to believe that we (women) are better than that! That we wouldn’t do the things those four women are doing! That we would never do all those horrible things all the other women are doing in “The Power”. I AM SHOOK!!! And coming from me that actually means something! I mean I can understand why the author chose to go down that road and it certainly is something new and quite different. It is indeed thought-provoking, but it definitely reflects badly on women all over the world. There’s rape, there’s torture, men are kept as slaves, there’s every kind of atrocity you can imagine and it’s horrifying to read.



”At first we did not speak our hurt because it was not manly. Now we do not speak it because we are afraid and ashamed and alone without hope, each of us alone. It is hard to know when the first became the second.”



I just don’t want to believe that women would misuse their power so much. Especially because (and it pains me to say this) the women in this book are so much worse than the men ever were. It’s one thing to give women power and to let them use it, it’s an entirely different thing to let them lose their humanity though and this is exactly what happens in this book. Take the worst of the worst, take the most horrible things men ever did and then lift it to another level. There are still countries in which women are oppressed and raped, there are illegal slave trades and prostitution, in your own country there are most certainly enough men that beat or hurt their women. This happens everywhere around the world, no matter whether it are third world countries or industrial nations. It’s horrible and wrong and we have to continue to do our best in order to fight this injustice and inhumanity. BUT what happens in this book?! This senseless violence, it’s cruel! Cruel and brutal and out of proportion, out of control.



”When did he get so jumpy? And he knows when. It wasn’t this last thing that made it happen. This fear has been building up in him. The terror put its roots down into his chest years ago and every month and every hour has driven the tendrils a little deeper into the flesh.”



No man is safe any longer. They are oppressed everywhere, even in America, even in Europe. If they voice their opinion they are fired, if they try to say something they are shut up. In the best case scenario they play the part of a nice pleasant face next to a woman, in the worst case they are enslaved, tortured and raped and have no rights anymore. They are treated as things before they lose their value and end up dead. IT IS HORRIBLE!!!



I REFUSE TO THINK THAT ALL WOMEN WOULD ACT LIKE THAT!!



”The sky, which had seemed blue and bright, clouds over, grey to black. There will be a rainstorm. It has been 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.



And that is exactly the thing that bugged me reading this book! The only women who show compassion for men are the ones that have no power to call their own and this distressed me immensely. Because basically this book is saying: Give women power and they’ll abuse it in the worst possible way. Which left a more than just bad taste in my mouth. And the ending?! Centuries and millennia of men in places of power, yet it never ended that way… *shakes head*



I liked the idea, I appreciate Naomi Alderman’s approach and her book is indeed thought-provoking, I refuse to accept that every woman would act like that though. I believe in democracy, in justice, freedom of speech, equality and compassion and every single fibre of my being is struggling against the kind of world Alderman created.



We could do so much better than that.

We CAN do so much better than that.



I guess in the end Naomi Alderman got us exactly where she wants us to be. ;-)