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    The Power
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    The Power
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    The Power
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Power

    Published by Hachette Audio

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    About this audiobook

    **WINNER OF THE 2017 BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION**

    What would happen if women suddenly possessed a fierce new power?

    In THE POWER, the world is a recognizable place: there's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power–they can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.

    From award-winning author Naomi Alderman, THE POWER is speculative fiction at its most ambitious and provocative, at once taking us on a thrilling journey to an alternate reality, and exposing our own world in bold and surprising ways.

    Editor's Note

    Breaking the mold…

    Naomi Alderman’s novel has made the biggest splash of all recent feminist dystopias (it was named one of President Obama’s best books of 2017). And it does so by breaking the mold: Instead of women being suppressed by society, they break society thanks to a new electric power that gives them the upper hand over men physically. A devastating look into four lives that converge as they vie for a more prominent place during mass social and political upheaval.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateOct 10, 2017
    ISBN9781478999904
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Power

    4/5

    1,206 ratings99 reviews

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    • 4/5
      What if women, starting with teen girls, suddenly developed an extraordinary electrostatic ability? How does this change gender dynamics? Politics? The whole world? With this new ability, women finally have the power to upend the patriarchy. The story follows the lives of just a handful of people in this new world: a young woman in Britain from a crime family, a young mixed-race woman in America who has been in the foster system most of her life, the mayor of a major city whose daughter shares her power with her, and a Nigerian reporter (the only male POV in the story) who travels the world documenting the political changes as they happen.The first half of the book is incredibly empowering to read as a woman. The women in this book no longer have to be afraid to walk alone at night. They can seek their own retribution. It kicks ass. Come the second half of the book, though, things take a turn for the worse. Our main characters suffer some defeats, and the world itself becomes more and more dystopic. (Of course, since the author basically just gender flipped everything, to call a world in which women are in charge and men are subjugated a dystopia, means that we also have to recognize that the real world we live in where women are subjugated, is also a dystopia. Food for thought there, for sure.)Overall, I really enjoyed the book. Some characters took some time to grow on me, and most of them surprised me in their own ways. I wish the author had included more diverse perspectives. What happens to trans people in this world? What about black women in America? Or anywhere else? What of people in Asia? There is so much more room for other stories within this world and I wish the author had taken that opportunity. Nonetheless, I think this book will appeal to readers of science fiction and feminist stories.
    • 3/5
      The rating is lower than the book deserves for quality. I rate on how much I liked reading the book, and here, the book splits pretty much into two-thirds and one-third: I enjoyed most of it, and then had to push my way through to the end. I just wasn't in the right space for the grimness of the ending chapters. All that said, it held my interest, and I appreciated the framing device of Neil and Naomi's exchanges, especially at the end, where it was a good transition back from the grimness. I have quibbles about some minor points, but they weren't the focus of the story. For the right person, this will be a good book.
    • 4/5
      A dystopian, apocalyptic novel of gender war, brought on by a newly-developed ability among females: the power to generate and project electricity from within their own bodies, and to awaken it in other women. Needless to say, there is a great deal of anger among the women of the world, and the ability to exact revenge, sometimes on any man encountered, provokes a massive backlash and a move towards catastrophic destruction wrought with today's weapons. The characters aren't particularly sympathetic, partly as a result of the storyteller's distance from the events - 5000 years into the future. But the ideas are very interesting, and having read this during the week the Kavanaugh nomination was being fought, I thought it was very timely.
    • 4/5
      Wow, this one is quite the ride and the perfect read to get out some frustrations with the ultra macho cult that is our current administration. I think the structure of the book worked remarkably well. The explanations for women's new power and the (sometimes predictable and sometimes really really unpredictable) ways in which it affected lives on the big and small scale was perfectly revealed. The characters are solid and the action scenes are exceptional. I am very interested to hear what some of my guy friends thought of this one. (Also: I recommend reading almost the whole thing during a very long travel day while you are unexpectedly stuck in an airport. Makes the whole experience a little more empowering....)
    • 5/5
      Wow! Imagine a world where the women take over. Men are controlled by women and women make the decisions. No man is permitted to do anything or go anywhere without a woman's approval. That's the premise of The Power. I liked it. A lot. Roles are reversed. The thoughts and words have changed gender. Men control very little and only with the approval of women. I was so into the story I forgot that it is a story that will be a novel of the time when the world changed from men leading to women leading. The set-up to and from the novel is done through letters from the author to a friend. Since he cannot tell the history as history, he does it as a novel. It works very well this way. I forgot it was a novel and was looking at it as ...hmmm, what if?I liked how it is done by years and each year is seen from the main characters point-of-view. I liked Roxy. She's tough and a survivor. Allie started to believe her PR. So does Margot. I'm not sure whether the two of them become hinderances or return to the light. Allie's voice makes me wonder--serpent or angel. I also enjoyed Tunde and his male point-of-view of what is happening to the men and will they survive. A well done novel that will make you question your beliefs. Lots of discussion points for book clubs. I know I'm recommending it for mine.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely though-provoking and powerful. The premise of gender-roles being reversed may not be the most original, but the way Alderman shows the transition from patriarchy to matriarchy is disturbing and does little to bolster faith in humanity. The letters that frame the story are imo the most powerful part of the story, because they ring so true to a female perspective.Speculative fiction at its best.
    • 4/5
      I really understand why it won the Baileys award. It totally deserved. Is a great book that makes you change the perspective of what will be if women really rule the world. I like everything how is the story narrated, how it develops, how it ends, each of the characters offer a different vision of the story that let you drive into the story. This is really in my ally and I can see it becoming a movie...
    • 4/5
      Really well-done speculative fiction, taking us into a world where women develop the power to send electrical shocks through their bodies. The power dynamics between men and women are reversed, and we see how that plays out over time. This book was challenging to read at times, because of the violence, and because it made me think. Definitely recommended!
    • 5/5
      Hooooooooooly crap, y'all. This book is AMAZING. And seriously violent and triggery and, on many levels, a depressing meditation on the fact that humans are garbage. At the same time, however, it is absolutely cathartic; while it may very well trigger those who have had sexual assault and abuse experiences, I would encourage fellow survivors to read it anyway, because the process of the book creates an emotional and experiential arc that, in the end, is both horrifying and deeply, deeply satisfying. Let's be clear: this is speculative fiction that looks toward the near future and is drawn straight from today's very real gender dynamics. In the book, teenage girls and women manifest the power to produce electricity in their bodies sufficient to electrocute -- you might imagine that such power turns society on its head, and it is that upheaval that the novel follows. It's also set up a book-within-a-book, with far future citizens looking back at what would be our near future and arguing amongst themselves about what's true in their history. That very set up creates enough distance to make even the more violent scenarios of the internal story fascinating in context. A friend of mine told me that there are two camps of people who read this book: those who think it should be viewed purely as a meditation on the absolute corruption of power (which, on many levels, it definitely is) and those who finish the book with the phrase "Burn it all down" on their lips. I leave you to decide which camp you are in, but I'm telling you that you need to read this book. The very last line of the very last far-future letter puts the entire novel in perspective -- when you read it, it will hit you. Amazing. Seriously.
    • 5/5
      For me, a great read: a thriller that asks what would happen if women suddenly acquired a kind of electrical force that can injure and kill anyone. At the same time it asks some pretty important questions about how we assume things because of gender, and how much of those assumptions are built on sand. What would a state run by women look like? What would happen to trafficked women? How would armies work?
    • 5/5
      What can I say about this book? I know it will be very divisive--some people will love it, some will hate it. I loved it. It posits what if a power awakens in women, an innate ability to generate electric power, so that they can defend themselves and hurt other people, so that they, in just a few years, become more powerful than men? I found this book exciting, challenging, uncomfortable, sometimes horrific, and just thought-provoking on so many levels--our assumptions about gender roles, about power structures, about religion, about history and who writes it. And it's also just a really good story, with lots of characters you care about and back-stabbing and power plays and revolution.
    • 4/5
      "The shape of power is always the same; it is the shape of a tree. Root to tip, central trunk branching and re-branching, spreading wider in ever-thinner, searching fingers. The shape of power is the outline of a living thing straining outward, sending its fine tendrils a little further, and a little further yet." - page 3Originally, the premise for this book seemed a bit outlandish. BUT page three immediately had be nodding along with the set up. I saw Alderman comparing power to the branches and roots of trees, and rivers leading to the ocean, and lightning, and was really rooting for her to make the connection to the nervous system...and she did. I've always thought that trees are like the blood vessels of the world. Trees do create oxygen, after all. The world is a beautiful coincidence (or a system of perfection). I appreciate that Alderman noticed that too. The book is set up as historical fiction, as if the writer is basing the plot from recently discovered history. Alderman speculates on what might happen if the power in the world was in the hands of women rather than men. Suddenly, young girls have the power of electricity emanating from their body at will. It causes quite a rabbit hole of a plot. The book's setup mainly follows four characters: Allie, passed through the foster system as an orphan who hears a voice called 'Mother Eve' from a young age and becomes much more than an orphan. Margot, a mayor who is rising up the ranks of government and a mom of a teenager with the power. Tunde, a college boy from Nigeria who starts traveling the world to become the chronicler of the revolution. Roxy, a young girl who first uses her power when her mom is killed because of her family's penchant for crime. All of the characters start to intertwine and I'm amazed at Alderman's skill at representing all four characters equally. And all four are equally essential to this story. The newfound power the women have quite changes their thinking, a bit too riotously. The power shifts too much and of course the men are scared. The characters are a little too man hating. I was thinking this book was just alright, but there were a couple more things I appreciated: Allie has a grand realization that should have been a Hail Mary (pun intended) for saving the world, which might have been too easy for the narrative. So I appreciated the book for that realization AND that it wasn't enough for redemption. This made the book for me.
    • 3/5
      Not particularly subtle, but fun enough. Could have been a lit less bloody.
    • 5/5
      This book took me back to some of the 70's feminist SF that I loved.It has the sharp humour of Joanna Russ - The Female Man, The Adventures of Alyx - and the bitter anger of Suzy McKee Charnas's Holdfast Chronicles, but with a more nuanced sense that power corrupts for whatever reason it's wielded. I enjoyed this immensely and will certainly pick up her earlier works.
    • 4/5
      Very interesting book. At first I wasn't sure I would like ti and then it grabbed me. Very suspenseful. The twist at the end was very surprising and the then made a lot of the things happening at the end of the book even more surprising. What I liked best was how it turned all the horrible things that happen to women when men are in power to what would happen to men when women have real power. And when many women have a thirst for revenge. But the book was not satire.
    • 5/5
      Poignant, powerful, and wonderfully different for a change. For once, women are the power hungry, the dominant, the top of the food chain. Eerily reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale and other dystopian literature, The Power chronicles the female ascent to the top. Worldwide young girls are discovering that they have the power to release electrical charges, effectively shocking other people, sometimes to death. They also discover that when they shock older women they have the power to waken the dormant abilities. Soon women all over the world have this power and for once the men know fear. Told through multiple perspectives over a ten year span we see a female mayor aspiring to be governor, a young teenage girl with stronger raw power then anyone has ever seen, Mother Eve a prophet of the power, and a journalist, the lone male voice in this book. Together their panic, amazement, and greed tell the tale of how men became the weaker sex and the movement that changed the course of history forever, Wonderfully fresh and inventive. I loved it!
    • 3/5
      Think this would have been a great short story; possibly two short stories - but as a novel, felt the concept was stretched out across choppy, choppy chapters with really limited plot holding it together - I think the structure may appeal more to sci-fi fans.
    • 4/5
      This is a bit of speculative fiction, dystopic, apocalyptic that also is a bit of horror. In this award winning story by Alderman. Things are reversed. Women suddenly have the Power and with that power they can be cruel. The story is framed by some letters between a Naomi and a Neil who are writing to each other about their writings. The book uses some unique styling with these letters, some crude sketches of an ancient civilizations and the actual story is the book written by Neil. It is a work of feminism but it left a sour taste for me. I did not like these women and their abusiveness. I didn't much care for any of the characters until the end and then I kind of liked two of them. The devices did not lend themselves well to the story, the characters were too many and perhaps less with more character development might have been helpful. The book was not readable to me in that I could put it down and avoid going back to it. Otherwise it is easy enough to read and one should be able to 'power' through it. Achievement-won the Bailey's Women's Prize in 2017. Read for book club February 2018.
    • 5/5
      The Power is one of the best books I have read in the last year. The premise is this. Young girls begin to discover that they have the power to transmit electrical power through their finger tips. The power spreads throughout the world with older women being able to awaken their own power. Alderman creates a very complex world around this premise. The story takes place in our time but it is written from 5000 years in the future. Told through the eyes of 4 characters that touch media, religion, politics, and crime. Gender roles begin to reverse and the conflict between the genders begin to manifest itself as a new order tries to emerge. Although the book uses women getting power as the premise, it is really about power and how it corrupts no matter which gender is in charge. Alderman raises many questions and many critics chide her for not providing solutions. This was not the role of this book. If you like thought provoking, dystopian novels then I strongly recommend this book. It should be noted that Alderman had Margaret Atwood as a mentor and her influence on this book is readily apparent.
    • 3/5
      Speculative Fiction imagines other worlds, other timelines, and The Power does this in an interesting fashion, focusing on the notion of where Power comes from, who has traditionally wielded it, and how. The central dynamic of the novel involves an evolutionary twist in which a new internal organ (a "skein") gives women a devastating power and, essentially, control of the world. Of course, it's not quite that simple, and the ending suggests a never ending loop in terms of gender roles and relations, rather than a final outcome (be it apocalyptic or utopian). (Brian)
    • 4/5
      Is gender nature, or nuture? This book explores the question of how different women really are from men by flipping the power dynamic between the sexes. The switch is literal. The novel is framed as a manuscript written thousands of years in the future, looking back to the time when most women suddenly acquired the power to generate powerful electric shocks -- "the power" of the title. Fairly rapidly, this shook societies to the core, leading to a Cataclysm, and eventually to the female dominated society in which the manuscript is written. The story comes down hard on the side of nature -- human nature -- dominating behavior, rather than any innate differences between the sexes. So much for the premise, what about the story? The action of the novel takes place in the period between the emergence of the power, and the arrival of the Cataclysm, and is traced through the experiences of five principal characters. There is a lot that is good about it as a novel. The characters are vividly drawn and (in the strange context in which they exist) believable enough to get you rooting for them. The prose is crisp and forcefull, and there is a strong element of very dark humor. The plot (and subplots) are compelling. For most of the book, this was enough to keep me reading with great interest and attention. Towards the end, however, as the change moves into the geopolitical realm, the momentum sags. The plot becomes confusing and diffused, major characters are left in limbo, and I had to push myself to finish. This is a very good book, and a good read, but for me it least it doesn't measure up to "The Handmaid's Tale", to which it is frequently compared. Read it for what it is.
    • 3/5
      I usually don't read dystopian novels. I just don't like the genre. But this title began with a hopeful premise. If women had the power to free themselves literally and figuratively. I wanted this story to be more uplifting. Sadly, women with power were no better and had no vision other than revenge and hate. The world falls into chaos. And the spiritual voice that comes to Mother Eve has no message other than the world needs to be destroyed in order to make way for a "higher" way of being. And then the spiritual voice is done and disappears. What? This book could have been so much more.
    • 4/5
      I'm still not sure about the framing device, writing it as if it was a historic novel, the artefacts were interesting, particularly when they invoked the "bitten fruit motif" which made me think and then head-slap. It's a story of women getting power, a control of electricity that is caused by a chemical that accumulates and causes a mutation that means that women have the ability, like electric eels, to generate and to shock and, surprise, surprise they use it and abuse it. The Framing story is about a male writer submitting this to a published about the distant past and while it adds to the story I'm not sure it adds enough to justify it being there. I loved the sketches and artefacts (particularly the Bitten Fruit Motif stuff, which did make me giggle). This story follows some of the pivotal women in the change and sees how they cope with the change and with the new world they're facing.I'm not entirely sure how things got from the framing story from the current pieces but it pulled me in and kept me reading and I really did enjoy the ride and could see how it really did reflect reality.
    • 4/5
      Our country has been enriched and nourished by emigrants since the first boat load arrived in 1607. (For the indigenous tribes whose lands were being invaded and whose people were being slaughtered it was not an equally enriching experience.) But in our present political situation we don't often take the time to understand how the experience of immigration affects those who have given up their homes in the hopes of gaining a better life.Polly Guo emigrates to the US from her native Fujien, China and gives birth to her son, Deming, shortly after her arrival in Manhattan. They somehow survive in a crowded dormitory while Polly tries to pay back the loan sharks who paid her emigration expenses. Eventually they share a small apartment in the Bronx with other emigrants, also sharing child care while Polly works two jobs to keep them afloat and reducing her debt. Deming grows up as an American, attending schools, playing video games with friends and getting what he needs to grow and thrive.But, one day, while in late elementary school, Deming's Mom doesn't come home from work and after awhile the adults that he lives with have no choice but to put him up for adoption. Soon he becomes Daniel Wilkinson, the son of well-intended middle-aged professors in upstate New York. Lisa Ko is a gifted writer and her early chapters document very skillfully the struggles of this immigrant mother and son. We are alternately astonished and appalled by the dangers and the struggles of living life on the edge of a cliff, but the novel takes on an accelerated pace as we follow Daniel as he deals with this unexplained disappearance of his mother and the challenges of living with his very loving but always unfamiliar new parents.How do you cope with abandonment, your mother leaving your life in an instant? How does that play out as Daniel graduates and leaves his small town and moves back to Manhattan? And what actually happened to his mother? And ultimately who is Daniel or Deming and where does he fit in? "The Leavers" is aptly titled and ultimately a joy to read. I came away feeling that I had been allowed the privilege of entering these lives and understanding the motives, the confusions, the hurts and the intentions of so many characters, but mostly growing to understand Daniel himself. This novel was the worthy recipient of the PEN / Bellwether Prize for "socially engaged fiction". It is a very worthwhile investment of time to read the other winners of this remarkable prize as well.
    • 3/5
      Young women all over the world discover that they have electrical power that can be used to shock and kill running through their bodies. What happens when women develop the power to take over the world? Will they use that power for good, or evil? Will the world become a peaceful place, or more violent than we can imagine? This speculative novel tells its story through the eyes of a daughter of a London crime family, a young woman who claims the title of Eve, a young male reporter, and an American politician and her daughter. This is a page-turning, thought-provoking read.
    • 4/5
      "Gender is a shell game. What is a man? Whatever a woman isn't.What is a woman? Whatever a man isn't."This book is set up as a book written by a male historian in the far future when women dominate men and rule the world. The male historian believes that a world ruled by men would be kinder and more nurturing, rather than a world in which aggressive and violent women rule. The book the historian writes is his thesis about how the world came to be ruled by women, and it is this book that we read.Almost simultaneously around the world women developed a "power" that enabled them to debilitate or even kill whoever they aim this power, which is similar to an electric shock, at. At first, many women don't know how to use this power, and many of those that do know how are reluctant to use it, but eventually there are wars etc. as women seize leadership roles. The story is told through the experiences of several characters, including Roxie, the daughter of a British crime family, Allie, an American teenager who reinvents herself as Eve, a faith healer and head of a religious movement that spreads worldwide, Margot, a politician who develops training camps to teach young women to use the power, Jocelyn, Margot's daughter, and a soldier in the women's army, and Tunde, a male Nigerian reporter who travels the world, at great risk to himself, to report on the cataclysm occurring as women begin using their power.This was an interesting and thought-provoking work. I recommend it.3 1/2 star
    • 4/5
      "The power to hurt is a kind of wealth." "They do it because they can." "Power doesn't care who uses it." "That is the trouble with history. You can't see what's not there. You can look at an empty space and see that something's missing, but there's no way to know what it was." This work of speculative fiction starts with the premise that women have evolved a power, a skein that grows on their chests and gives them the tremendous power to generate and harness electrical energy. It turns out that this power is not universal among women; there are, of course, genetic variations. But the impact of this power, the power to hurt or even kill another being, on societal structures, norms, and deviations provides a world in which author Naomi Alderson can fully explore the role of power in human relations and organizations. Her novel is timely. It is also engaging and adequately complex to address the issues on the table. Spoiler alert: power corrupts, no matter who has access to it.
    • 3/5
      I really thought I was going to like this a lot more than I did. The first 100 pages or so flew by with an almost intoxicating pace. (apart from the very clumsy front end of the very clumsy bookends of the novel). Thought this was going to be a 4 or 5 star read.

      It is not a new or novel idea but there is nothing wrong with that. There is a lot to like in the book but it is too muddled in may of its themes and looses too much momentum in the middle and never quite recovers. Shame really.

      Maybe if these ideas are new to you then perhaps it would have more impact. However, I do think that Naomi has a much better book in there waiting to come out.
    • 4/5
      OK, all the criticisms of this are fair. It's rapey and it's dark and it's grim and overwrought, and the metaphors are laid on with a trowel. But I really enjoyed it. From the smart business woman trying to live a lie and hide her power, to the wild women living out in camps and hunting men, it packed a big punch with a host of flawed characters I still really cared about.
    • 4/5
      Reading the first few chapters of The Power I knew I was going to love it. Teenage girls begin having electricity coming out of their hands and it flips the world upside down. The girls learn to control, how to share it, how to protect themselves, how to hurt people with it, they learn what it means to have power. The story follows 4 characters, one is a teenage girl who become a religious icon, one is a woman who is a politician with a teenage daughter, another is a man who becomes a journalist documenting the change, and the last one is a girl who is part of a gangster family in England. The book is counting down to the Day of the Girls, each section time moves forward and more changes are noticed. With women basically becoming the rulers of the world, it still echos somewhat of modern society but the roles are reversed. I loved the build up, but I felt the actual Day of the Girls moment was confusing and needed to be elaborated on. I absolutely loved the epilogue part of the book.