The Power by Naomi Alderman

On the surface, Naomi Alderman's The Power is a difficult book to explain. You start off by dipping your toe into pseudo-YA plot synopsis of how one day teenage girls suddenly had the ability to electrocute people with their hands, and before you know it, you're shoulder-deep into a metaphor pool, swimming with religious allegories and jumping off the "feminist doesn't mean better" high dive. It's not an easy book to pin down, and I can't think of higher praise for it--it makes you work for it, not have it spoon-fed to you.

Canst thou direct the lightning bolts? Or do they say to thee, 'Here we are'?

The Power is the alternate history story of a world where women quite swiftly and decisively cease to be the "weaker sex." Whether through an inevitable evolutionary step, the awakening of something that always was, or conspiracy theory water laced with post-war chemicals, the inexplicable shift changes everything. We get a peek into this brave new world via four main narrators: abused-orphan-turned-prophet Mother Eve (née Allie), British crime lord bastard Roxie, political ladder climber Margot, and our male inside man journalist, Tunde.

We follow our narrators to heaven and hell and back again: From the exciting sexual component that most men fear and yearn for simultaneously, to unabashed rape at the hands of women with the power to make men's bodies betray their protests; From girls jolting each other in summer camp-like merriment, to women dying to protect their weakened men from those who find joy in their pain and death; From the newfound peace of mind that women no longer need to fear men, to the apathy at murders of men based on the assumption that they most likely committed past crimes against women and were murdered in justified acts of vengeance. In the end, we're left pondering, "When does power exist? Only in the moment it is exercised."    

This is where I’ll leave the remainder of the story to the author and share the Good and the Bad of The Power.

The Good:

-The Poetry of Language: 

I know, saying you like a book because it's well-written is tantamount to saying you like a meal because it tasted good. But I found myself struck again and again by Alderman's deftness at encapsulating integral themes and messages so beautifully:

A child in danger must learn to pay more attention to the adults than a child loved and cherished.

 God is neither man nor woman but both these things. But now She has come to show us a new side of Her face, one we have ignored for too long.

...they're cutting into her so carefully it feels like a compliment. 

At first we did not speak our hurt because it was unmanly. 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.

-The Stark Fearlessness:

It would have been easy to shy away from the darkest corners of humanity and simply allude to the horrors committed in the name of power--but Alderman meets them head-on and never blinks. It's not always easy to endure, but (even though this is a work of fiction) the atrocities have a ring of truth to them that demand you at least bear witness. 

-The Multiple Narrators:

Multiple narrators don't work well in every book, but the ones that do give you a glimpse into POVs that you could otherwise only hazard a guess at. Would Mother Eve have been such a complex character if I didn't know she was posturing and conversing with a voice in her head? Would Roxie have been anything more than a thug if I didn't understand what drove her? Would Margot be another faceless politician without her love and concern for her daughter? And would Tunde be yet another man living in a woman's world if I didn't experience his awe--and eventual terror--at suddenly being the vulnerable sex?

The Bad:

-The Random History Lessons:

While I found the "archeological discoveries" interesting, I was agitated at any diversion that interrupted the flow of the story for more than a few sentences. I was a latecomer to the realization that these asides were the book's past and current day's future, but I'm not sure if they added enough to the story to justify the deviation.  

-The Ambiguous Ending: 

What can I say? I'm a sucker for closure. I'll avoid spoiler territory here, but I can say that while the literal ending of the book was very illuminating, the ending of the story I had invested almost 400 pages in was less than satisfactory. Maybe there was no way to craft a definitive ending to the tangled web the story wove, but I would have liked something more tangible.

TL;DR: The Power is both a feminist comeuppance and a power-hungry cautionary tale all at once. It begs the question: Does absolute power destroy absolutely? While I beg the question: Why aren't more books this powerful?