The Power

by Naomi Alderman

[sarahjay]

I am stunned. And frankly, I am livid that there is a quote on the back of this book from Cosmopolitan saying this is "The Hunger Games crossed with The Handmaid's Tale." Excuse me. No. It could easily be a companion piece to The Handmaid's Tale, so that comparison is much more apt, but in my view the only way it is similar to The Hunger Games is how both that trilogy and this book have humans in it. (This is not in any way a dig on The Hunger Games. Just saying that comparison is a ridiculous oversimplification of all three novels mentioned. Yes, I realize it was probably intended as a marketing ploy - "hey kids, this thing is like these other two popular things!" But it's insulting, really, because this book has no trouble standing on its own two feet. Anyway.)

This year I have, for maybe obvious reasons, been reading a lot of a genre I have been referring to in my head as "fucked up feminist dystopian fiction." I don't know that this is the healthiest way to respond to the current events of our time, but that is where I have sought my comfort. See, look, in this book there's a much worse car crash to stare at than the one on CNN! See, read about this apocalypse scenario, where the women get horribly abused and mistreated in varying ways by men gone mad with power, but in categorically WORSE ways than in real life, AND everyone has a plague or something. Find inspiration in these characters who overcome their circumstances by any means necessary. Take notes.

This one more than fits into that category, but I have still never read anything like this book. It flips everything. Live in this fantasy where women have super powers. Wish for that power, your own skein. Wish for that magic, the lightning at your fingers. We are all Stormcallers in this world. "She cuppeth the lightning in her hand. She commandeth it to strike." I want this tattoo on my collarbone. I want that power, I want to believe I'd use it right.

Does everything go perfectly? Well, it sure doesn't, folks. It is mesmerizing the whole time. It messes with your head. You start seeing and thinking about people differently. It turns you upside down. I was racing to finish it but I also never wanted it to end.

The last line, though. It was brilliant. The whole thing was.

I am going to be thinking about The Power for a very, very long time.