Reviews with content warning for Trafficking - The Power

Ultimately this book is about the corruption people endure when they hold power. There were some interesting concepts here, but because of the way it was written, I never fully connected with the characters. They felt a little shallow. I think this is a product of the book being presented as someone in the far future's research manuscript. I always felt like I was one or two steps removed from the characters and someone was describing their actions, but not their full emotional spectrum. So I never truly felt invested in them as people. I came the closest to caring about Roxy on a deeper level, but I still never felt truly invested in her story.

I liked the concept of the victors writing the history, and how prehistory is nothing more than circumstantial evidence and hypothesis. The old cliche about those who control the past also control the future rings true here. But back to the main point of the book: absolute power corrupts absolutely. I felt that it was a bit heavy-handed with the violence, but as soon as women gained more power than men in this novel, all of the violence that men did to women in the past, were revisited to them, only more so. The book was not subtle about making its point. Its just too bad the execution of this concept wasn't as solid as it could have been.

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nluchs's review against another edition

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challenging dark inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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madisongturner's review against another edition

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4.25

This was a pretty good dystopian-style science fiction book. I do think it targets the same demographic of people who enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale. It does a great job of demonstrating how the oppressed are not without the ability to become the oppressors. While I do not think it is inevitable that they would, I appreciate the look into how we see the worst come out in those who are in charge, no matter how much it seems like they would never act that way. The only major qualm I have with this is the same as we are used to seeing in this style of feminist literature, it is a little trans-exclusionary which was unnecessary. Otherwise, it definitely made me think and was a very intriguing style of book.

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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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fsws's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

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apersonfromflorida's review

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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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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