Reviews with content warning for Death - The Power

Oof, this book is a total clusterfuck.

The characters are very hollow. They’re just props for carrying out the plot, which made it hard for me to get emotionally invested in them. The constant shifting of perspectives between the characters also contributed to my emotional detachment. As soon as I felt like I was excited to see what happened next to a character, their chapter would abruptly end. Giving each character roughly one chapter per year over a ten year time span was also jarring. They each lived so much life between those chapters, and we didn’t get to see any of it.

My perception is that the “thesis” of this book is that disproportionate power in anyone’s hands can be deadly. While I agree on the whole, the execution was sloppy in this book because the story started in our current patriarchal society. It would have been more interesting to deeply examine how the remnants of misogyny and patriarchy hung around during the shift to violent matriarchy. There were glimmers of this—the UrbanDox guy, and the line towards the end talking about how there are still a handful of men with power and money out there. But I think those moments fell flat because they weren’t properly connected to the overall thesis of the book.

Content Warnings

vivikasweiven's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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christynhoover's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I found this to be a rough read. For the most part I did NOT like the characters --often intensely! Which doesn't mean it's a bad book or poorly written. Just be prepared. Lots of violence, brutality.

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hannahmdejong's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

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lesemaus2303's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Such a fascinating thought experiment!!

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kmhst25's review against another edition

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dark sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Praise: A gripping, fascinating read that does a superb job of examining men's crimes against women, by showing them to you backwards. The author was constantly stunning me with her ability to show me my world flipped, highlighting its repugnance. This change in perspective is extremely clarifying.

Criticism: It's hard to truly classify this book as feminist. The basic premise seems to be: if given the chance, women would be 100% as bad as men are. I have lots of objections to this theory, but my top 3 are:

It's hard to believe that all of the women who have experienced patriarchy would turn around and inflict it's equivalent on men. Some women? Sure. The whole world? God, I hope not. If nothing else, women have first-hand experience of gender-based oppression. They know what it feels like, and people are more sympathetic to problems they have experienced first-hand.
The numbers don't support it. Women already have physical power over childen, and while the flat number of people who abuse childen is slightly higher for woman than men, the actual rate of abuse (counts of abuse / the # of people with opportunity) is much lower for women than men.
Additionally, guns and poison level the playing field of violence. Women could easily commit violent crimes in equal number to men using any of the myriad of weapons available today. And yet they don't. Female violence is much lower than male violence, in any category, with any weapon. Why should we believe that a new female-only weapon would completely flip-flop that difference when guns have hardly touched it?
Testosterone exists, and both men and male animals that are deprived of it (i.e., castrated) are less likely to be violent. Ask any vet. Violence and oppression are not the exclusive products of opportunity; there are lots of contributing factors, and none of them are given any credence here.

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madkatrob's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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thedisabledreader's review against another edition

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dark

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

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