The Power

About this book

Suddenly - tomorrow or the day after - teenage girls find that with a flick of their fingers, they can inflict agonizing pain and even death. With this single twist, the four lives at the heart of Naomi Alderman's extraordinary, visceral novel are utterly transformed. Review Electrifying -- Margaret Atwood A big, brash, page-turning, thought-provoking thriller ― Guardian A fascinating look at what the world might be like if millennia of sexism went the other way. Ingenious . . . deserves to be read by every woman (and, for that matter, every man) ― The Times It's magnificent. I'm agog. Really, I'm several gogs. So smart and scary and sad but true -- Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Handmaid's Tale for the Gone Girl generation ― Grazia A stone cold genius -- Sarah Perry The Hunger Games crossed with The Handmaid's Tale ― Cosmopolitan The Power is a subtly funny, lyrical and utterly subversive vision of an impossible future. As all the best visionaries do, Alderman shines a penetrating and yet merciful light on to our present and the so many cruelties in which we may be complicit -- A. L. Kennedy Electrifying! Shocking! Will knock your socks off! Then you'll think twice, about everything -- Margaret Atwood The Power is a fascinating look at what the world might be like if millennia of sexism went the other way...as a whole the narrative feels ingenious...deserves to be read by every woman (and, for that matter, every man) ― The Times A feminist science-fiction story that's about to make waves ― Red If you enjoy Margaret Atwood's dystopian fiction, this strong, substantial novel is for you ― Woman & Home Alderman is a fluent and powerful writer ― Sunday Times Thought-provoking novel ― Glamour When we say that The Power is profoundly disturbing and you may well want to argue with it as you read, we mean that in a good way ― SFX, Five Stars I loved it; it was visceral, provocative and curiously pertinent . . . The story has stayed with me since ― Stylist, the decade's 15 best books by remarkable women As awesome as it is compulsive ― Heat, 5 stars What starts out as a fantasy of female empowerment deepens and darkens into an interrogation of power itself, its uses and abuses and what it does to the people who have it ― Guardian A raw, gutsy slice of speculative dystopia ― Metro Like the best science fiction, this dystopian feminist fantasy holds up a mirror to the here and now ― Mail on Sunday A gripping read and a reminder of the true joy of a truly engaging story ― Stylist Frenetic sci-fi novel ― Daily Mail Naomi's super-charged, subversive novel....forcing you to rethink everything ― Psychologies One of my favourite books of 2016 - clever, harrowing and thought-provoking -- Paula Hawkins, best-selling author of The Girl on the Train It's a feminist dystopian page-turner of a thriller and I'm IN LOVE with it -- Marian Keyes This year's Baileys winner is simultaneously a high-concept thought experiment and a rollercoaster, action packed read ― Guardian The Power by Naomi Alderman is the feminist flipside to The Handmaid's Tale, asking what happens when women are suddenly the stronger sex ― Evening Standard An enthrallingly told Cassandra-like prophecy from the ever-inventive Naomi Alderman ― Observer This book sparks with such electric satire that you should read it wearing insulated gloves ― Washington Post The Power is at once as streamlined as a 90-minute action film and as weirdly resonant as one of Atwood's own early fictions ― Boston Globe In this fierce and unsettling novel, the ability to generate a dangerous electrical force from their bodies lets women take control, resulting in a vast, systemic upheaval of gender dynamics across the globe ― New York Times Books of the Year It's a riveting story, told in fittingly electric language, that explores how power corrupts everyone: those new to it and those resisting its loss' ― New York Times