"The Power" by Naomi Alderman
It will change your life.
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2017, I discovered the book reading the NY Times. I immediately bought it on Black Friday WALKING through frigid weather to the bookstore to buy it. I did not regret it. The book has haunted me ever since and I have bought it in hardcover 7 times and trade paperback once so far.
One of President Obama's favorite reads of 2017
One of the New York Times's Ten Best Books of 2017
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
An Amazon Best Book of 2017
A Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2017
One of the Washington Post's Ten Best Books of 2017
An NPR Best Book of 2017
One of Entertainment Weekly's Ten Best Books of 2017
A Bustle Best Book of 2017
A Paste Magazine Best Novel of 2017
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2017
Winner of the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction
"The Power is our era's The Handmaid's Tale." --Ron Charles, Washington Post
From the publisher's description:
www.littlebrown.com/.../
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.
scroll.in/.../a-world-where-women-are-the-dominant-sex-this-timely-novel-imagines-it-5000-years-from-now
A world where women are the dominant sex? This timely novel imagines it, 5,000 years from now
In a women-ruled country, the men struggle for power in to a literal battle of the sexes
The time: 5,000 years from now. A writer sends his manuscript to his mentor, asking for her opinion. In his new work, he presents what he calls “a sort of ‘novelisation’ of what archaeologists agree is the most plausible narrative” of how the contemporary world order came to be.
This “novelisation” is the meat of Naomi Alderman’s novel, The Power. Shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, it is a masterpiece of speculative fiction that explores a world in which women are the dominant sex, blessed with a superhuman ability to generate a sort of electrical current that places them, for perhaps the first time in history, on a physical level unmatched, never mind surpassed, by men.
On “the day of the girls”, the world changes. Young women across the world suddenly find themselves no longer at the mercy of men. Reports filter in of teenage girls being able to generate an electrical current, much like eels, that they can turn against those who seek to harm them.
At first, few people believe these disparate stories, which connect places as far apart as India, Nigeria, the UK and the US. It’s only when Tunde, an intrepid, fledgling reporter from Lagos, puts up a video of a young woman repelling a harasser with an electric shock the international community acknowledges the development.
The Power tells the story of how the world changed, tracing events to the dawn of the “Cataclysm Age”.
(more)
Most Helpful Opinions
Se7en. Oh my god. Ans ruined NIN’s closer for me.
Movies:
Knowing
Human trafficking
Se7en
The illusionist
The prestige
Inception
The Game
The forgotten
Mind Hunters
Books:
Under the Dome (Stephen King)
The Eight and it's sequel The Fire (Catherine Neville)
Alex Cross series (James Patterson) - some of them were really messed up
Robert Langdon series (Dan Brown)
House of Stairs (William Sleator) - we had to read that one as a school assignment. I had nightmares afterwards and I hated the teacher for choosing this book
As a kid I also liked the Goosebumps series (R. L. Stine) he always messed up with your mind at the end...
Black mirror playtest. That episode fucks with your perception of reality
What Girls & Guys Said
Opinion
47Opinion
"12 years a slave". That movie was like a punch in the gut to me. I actually felt dirty after watching it.
I think it affected me the way it did because you learn about slavery in school being part of our history but this movie put a face on it. It also highlighted what it meant to be black around that time.
I Mean Solomon Northup was a free educated black man living in the north but he was kidnapped by a couple slave traders, taken down south, and sold at a slave auction. Though he tried to tell anyone who would listen at first who he was, the fact that he was black made him less than human and no one would listen. Even at times when his education in engineering showed to be greater than his slave owners, rather than consider there was validity to his story they just resented him more. His intelligence just made him a target for beatings. And a few times nearly got him hanged.
This movie really brought home what it meant to be black then. That if you escaped north and found freedom, you could still be kidnapped and brought back. That no matter where you went. Or to which heights you clumbed in education or business. You would still be a second class citizen due to your skin color
Or maybe Chiwetel Ejiofor is just that good of an actor.What a great question! It would take me age's to come up with a definitive answer, so I'll throw a couple of curveballs in for the time being. The last fiction book I read was a book called "Fan" it's written from the perspective of a football fan of the team I support, and has the Hillsborough tragedy (where 96 people died) as it's back drop. It's mainly though a story of growing up, male insecurity, friendship, lost love and regrets but even at the end of it I can't work out if the main character is a hero or a villain. Movie wise one of my favourite Movies is a film called Dead Man Shoes (again filmed around where I grew up-which makes me think the older I get the more homesick I become lol), it's a revenge movie but neither the heroes or the villains fulfil there roll, everybody in the film is flawed and the ending where the (supposed) hero is killed by the (supposed) villain messes with my head massively.
I read some book on alien abduction back when I was a teenager. It took me over a month to fall asleep without being paranoid about little grey men coming in my room and taking me away. I’d constantly peer out my window? Stare at my bedroom door, listening for footsteps. I fell asleep close to sunrise for a while 😂😂😂
book guy debords the spectacle
movie. hypernormalisation
when you say messed with your head i took that to mean changed my whole perspective on life though really both confirmed inner suspicions i already held... its just i thought i was the only oneI liked Cosmopolis. It did something there where it implanted weird thoughts in my head.
https://youtu.be/WcqviouLRsU8mm, starring Nicolas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix. When my college friends and I left the theatre, we spent a good 20mins going on about how fk'd that movie was.
The program called Paranormal that messes with my head
i am optimistic to continue watching cause i fear evil spirits
will come out of the Television to inside my house.I'll never forget. Terminator 3. Right at the end. When the machines took over. Everyone walked out the theater quiet as a mouse. No one touched their phones or anything electronic.
Interstellar
I understood it, but it messed with me more than mostI read a book about a suicide hotline, very messed up.
Charlotte's Web. The idea of a talking thinking spider freaks me out still today.
A beautiful mind. It made me question my own sanity 😅
The ending of "1984", the romantic in me wanted a happy ending, instead got a full circle.
The Energy Cure
When Rabbit Howls
The Killing FieldsSixth sense. fight club, buttery effect. But mostly old boy
13 reasons why netflix series. I felt like I needed to go counselling after watching it.
"Excavating The Empty Tomb" on Youtube.
"Force Factor" from 2003 (which you can watch online free)
"Matrix"Probably the bible it took me years and tons of learning human nature to fully understand how people could be stupid enough to believe that bullshit
Matrix was a mindfuck. It took me until two years ago to have someone explain to me what it actually was. Then there is inception
"Jaws". I haven't been in the ocean since 1975. Used to live right on the Atlantic coast of the US.
Learn more
We're glad to see you liked this post.
You can also add your opinion below!
Most Helpful Opinions