In between the different perspectives there are illustrations of historical artifacts which lead to the development of female cults, which means that the novel itself (which is a subplot) is being written in the far far future and documenting events which we consider the present. The book is told through various protagonists in the novel: A male reporter, a girl who becomes the supreme leader a gangster’s child and a female politician. When I first read The Power back in February, I had to rush read it as I was going abroad and I don’t like taking half read books with me on the plane ( yeah I can be fussy like that) and I didn’t absorb much but this time round I was quite stunned by this novel.Īlderman imagines a world where women are given the power to shoot lighting bolts from their hands, this give women automatic authority over everything. Alderman’s take on gender equality is unique and The Power is open to many interpretations.

Eventually things do not go as planned which leads to the notion that maybe women in positions of power are just as brutal as men in power. What would happen if women managed to shoot electric sparks from their hands via a skein on their necks? Naomi Alderman asks this question and the results are umm electrifying?Īlderman presents a society where women overthrow gender struggle and keep all aggressive men at a distance (or dead). Funny and Clever, Hag-Seed ( a pejorative term from someone born from a witch i.e Caliban) shows that Margaret Atwood still is an unstoppable force. In reality though this play is part of an elaborate revenge plot.

In this version a shamed theatre director who is teaching drama to prisoners, decides to hold The Tempest as his next production. So far the results have been consistent but my favourite is definitely Margaret Atwood’s re-telling of the Tempest. The premise behind The Hogarth Shakespeare series are quite interesting: get a contemporary author to reinterpret a Shakespeare play. Anyway I managed to read a few great novels, which segues in my top 10 of the year. Incidentally the book that helped was Jessie Burton’s The Muse. I started off badly which led into a massive slump in which fourteen books were rejected. Reading-wise 2017 was an ok year but not a fantastic one.

The power naomi alderman goodreads