We’ve all considered what superpowers we’d like if we could have them. But what would happen if only some people got superpowers and others didn’t? And by extension, what could happen if one demographic got powers & others didn’t? Women for example?
The Power is a fictional story about the day women learn they each have a skein, an electrical organ across their collarbones that allow them to emit jolts of electricity from their fingers. But crucially, skeins can only be found in women. We follow several people, including an adoptive child and a young journalist as the world comes to terms with this new power, and the shift of women becoming the dominant sex begins. As the story goes on, this new power turns out to be a lot more sinister than people had imagined, with the new European nation of Bessapara a crucible for the breakdown of everything we know about our world.
I quite liked the concept for this story. A strange power that women possess that men don’t? That’s an interesting starting point. But sadly this book left quite a bit to be desired. Whilst I enjoyed getting the multiple perspectives, it felt as though the story was jumping about far too much, with many characters not interacting until the final chapters. I also struggled with the author’s writing style. Whilst she has a fantastic concept for her story, this constant shifting between characters, inexplicable switching between using speech marks and not using them for dialogue, and the very short chapter lengths at the end of the book (some consisting of a half page or less) left me struggling to understand some beats of the story, which I’m sure left me missing at least one key plot point by the end.
The Power is such a fun idea for a story but sadly, really did not land for me. It may be as simple as needing a structure change to make this book better, but in its current form was not the read I was excited to get into.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
The Power (ISBN: 978-0-670-91996-3) was published in 2016
