This is only the second 10/10 rating I have ever given on this blog about a book, and it is undeniably well deserved. Previously when reading other book reviews, I never understood how a book could be ‘breathtaking’ and deemed it an altogether ridiculous phrase to describe a book. Until I read 'The Power’.
I think the best thing about this book and what made it so spectacular, was the fact that I knew nothing about the storyline and bought it based on the fact that I had just finished reading Margaret Atwood’s 'The Handmaids Tale’ when this one popped up as 'like The Hunger Games and The Handmaids Tale combined’ and knew that I had to get my hands on a copy.
To try and preserve the 'surprise’ if you like, I’ll try to make my summary of the plot as general as possible, but enough to convince you that this book is an absolute masterpiece. The narrative follows a society much like today’s, but where women discover that they have all the power, and almost overnight men are cast out and realise that their power has been diminished to nothing. The novel flicks between four different characters, all located across the world in varying countries, documenting the spread of power and rise of women - Tunde, Margot, Roxy and Allie. These four characters all experience different situations and use the power to both their advantage, but sometimes to their detriment.
I can’t stress enough how thrilling and gripping this book is, because I was absolutely spellbound by it. I read it in a day and a half and couldn’t put it down, because at the end of every chapter you are left on a cliffhanger that leaves you gasping for answers and closure.
This novel is so powerful and articulated; it highlights certain elements of our society that are dark and evil, and it is so interesting to see circumstances that some women face reversed and transferred onto men. An utterly incredible novel that I know I am going to be raving about for years to come and recommending it to everyone that I meet - this is definitely a copy that is going to be on my bookshelf until I’m an old woman, and one that I know I will read and re-read for years to come.
Like I said previously, this is only the second 10/10 rating that I have ever given a book on my blog since starting it a year ago, so full ratings are not ones that I give lightly or very often because I make sure that I am critical and honest when I review books, because at the end of the day, the reason people read my reviews is for an honest opinion on a book - so that’s what I give. But if there’s one thing you should take away from this review, it’s that you HAVE to read this book.
Not only is is phenomenally written and very cleverly put together and structured, it highlights hidden and clear injustices within our society that we don’t talk about or consider closely enough - from rape to FGM, Alderman uses this book as a beacon for change by reversing issues that women face onto men and accentuates the importance of tackling these issues among readers.
This novel is wholly deserving of its 10/10 rating and is one that I hope after reading this review, you will go out and get your hands on, because not only does Alderman perfectly create a dystopian world wrapped in satire, she also artfully brings forward the struggles of women around the world. An absolute must read and a book that I will cherish for years to come. Please please please go and read this book!
Set in a dystopian world and military dictatorship called the Republic of Gilead, the novel explores themes such as censorship, oppression and rebellion; a society where women have extremely limited freedoms and are assigns ‘roles’ such as being an Agatha – a cook and house servant or Handmaid – to provide children for powerful households through ‘the ceremony’ whereby Housemaids have sex with the male head of the household with his wife present due to the decrease in births as a result of sexually transmitted diseases.
Religious fanaticism is an undertone that runs throughout the novel, with the regime having doctored the Old Testament to legitimise and empower their cause. The narrator Offred is a Handmaid and often flicks between past and present events as well as memories throughout the novel to allows the reader to have insight into the events leading up to the patriarchal takeover. Events such as the burning of lingerie due to their ‘hyper sexualisation’ of women and the new view that the female body must be covered at all times with exposure leading to execution. In the new regime, women are robbed of many basic rights such as the freedom of speech, banned from talking to anyone outside of their household and reading.
I absolutely loved this book, it was such an interesting read and the way the novel is structured means that you are constantly drip fed new information from how the Republic was established and Offred’s life Pre-Gilead with her husband and daughter. This is one of the few books that I would definitely read again and again because the concept and execution are so captivating that you can’t help but be enticed and drawn in by it. To me the novel echoes satire of politics and social constructs in the 1980’s at the time of Atwood’s writing and can be critically analysed through feminism, politics, sociology and the hierarchal structure of society – more specifically regarding the patriarchy.
Overall this was an intensely captivating and interesting read that I can’t recommend highly enough. Deserving of 9/10 because I really really enjoyed this book and didn’t want it to end! I definitely will be reading it again, and you should definitely give it a try if you’re looking for something that’s going to get you thinking this summer!
Make sure to check out my giveaway ending 11th August if you haven’t already!
This was such an interesting read, I was honestly really pleasantly surprised by hw much I enjoyed this book. If you’ve been reading my review for a while, then you’ll know that the thing I hate about reading is expectation. If my expectations are too high because of a ‘hype’ then I’m always disappointed - so my outlook is to always go in with low expectation. But this book really took me by surprise. I was kindly sent a copy of this book by Hodder & Stoughton, and I don’t know why, but I’m always a little hesitant when I get sent books by publishing companies and feel a lot of pressure to read them. But I decided that this would be one of my holiday reads…little did I realise that it would be so profound.
The novel is in the form of diary entries, so follows the life of the narrator from when she’s very young through into her adult life in South Africa - her education as a teenager, training as a doctor, her relationship with her mother. But most importantly, the novel also comments on a number of socio-political events and attitudes within South Africa. Throughout the book there’s a lot of commentary on the divide within the community between light and dark skinned South Africans, as well as xenophobic attitudes towards individuals from North African countries and the discrimination that they face/faced.
There are so many interesting comments made throughout the novel, without giving too much of the novel’s plot away (as to prevent spoilers), its interesting to read about the inability to speak out against a majority view or ideology. I became so engrossed in this book that I managed to start, and finish it in a matter of hours. Due to the length and layout of the book, it was very easy to just power read, but the cliff hangers and content also helped keep me hooked too.
I’m so so in love with this book and everything that it discusses and the way it brings taboo subjects into the forefront of narrative, you’d be a fool not to read it. Completely and utterly deserving of its 9/10 rating, Evening Primrose is a touching and thought provoking novel that will leave you completely stunned - a must read this summer.
Vox made me angry. I tore through it in 48 hours and felt my rage rise by the page. But oh, the satisfaction in reading a book so infuriating. It stoked all of my justified feminist rage.
Imagine a world like ours where puritanical values prevail, - wait, a little too close to home for your taste? Well, in this world, females are relegated to a word count of 100 or less a day. The words are tallied by a nifty and strategically marketable (Look, Mom, it comes in purple!) wristband which electrically zaps the woman at increasing volts with each additional infraction. And it starts in childhood, so little girls no longer learn to read and write. Naturally, work outside the home is impossible, as is any reading, writing, access to language and computers, and well, you’d be astounded by just how much of our lives incorporates words. It’s a little Handmaid’s TalemeetsAll Rights Reserved.
Our protagonist, Jean, is not only a mother of boys and a girl, but a highly-regarded doctor and expert in aphasia. Restless and stuck at home, when an aphasia-related tragedy rattles the government, who but our doctor can save the day? Add in a forbidden romance, and really, Vox is a veritable politically-charged speculative page-turner.
My one complaint: The book ended too soon; I could have read another 100 pages - or I could, at least, until the government fits me with a wristband.
Last year, I was invited to write the forward to Christine Delphy’s Close To Home, recently published by Verso Press. Delphy’s essays look at the material economic conditions that underlie and perpetuate gender inequality, and I have thought of her work often over the past year: during the intra-left debates during the Democratic primaries, the casting of Hillary Clinton as a “bourgeois woman” (and therefore the enemy - Delphy’s whole chapter on bourgeois women is on point and kind of hilarious, if you’re the kind of person who finds hilarity in arguments between Marxists, feminists, and Marxist feminists), and post-US election as well.
I am sharing this information with you because feminist org Continuum is running a giveaway of the book today (until EOD Thursday 11/17, American EST), to coincide with the Radicals & Revolutionaries Lab webinar I’ll be doing with them on Friday, November 25th at 12pm US EST, 9am PST, and 5pm GMT. (That’s 4am Saturday east coast Australian time - eep. And sorry.)
Continuum was one of the first groups I discovered when I moved to New York two and a half years ago, and they have been core to my sense of community in the city, introducing me to many of the fiercest and most inspiring people I know here.
Over the summer, Continuum launched their monthly Radicals & Revolutionaries Lab webinar, which has served as food for my soul, featuring up-close and in-depth conversations with people like Alicia Garza from Black Lives Matter, Ai-jen Poo from the National Domestic Workers Alliance, feminist hip hop artist Shanthony Exum, and leaders from the Doula Project and Drunk Feminist Films.
I’m so excited to be able to share the work I’m doing around The Sex Myth at R&R Lab next week, and would love to see as many of you there as possible.
The collection “Villains, Victims, and Violets: Agency and Feminism in the Original Sherlock Holmes Canon”, edited by Tamara R. Bower and Resa Haile, is out today!
One of the most intriguing collections of Sherlockian scholarship in recent years, the book comprises a collection of essays on the women in the canon, written exclusively by women, offering new insights into their roles within the narrative and the Victorian age and opening up many new points of discussion.
I firmly believe that how feminist a book is is better demonstrated by its background characters rather than its mains
What I mean by this is that a book may have “feminist” female leads who are strong, competent, complex, whatever, but how do they portray women just…existing in the world? Are there women in the background, or is the fantasy novel with its strong independent Action Girl protagonists set on a background of generic male soldiers, guards, councilors, shopkeepers, messengers, and wizard apprentices? Are minor characters ever women when there’s no particular reason for them to be? When women appear in the background of your story, do they have any unique qualities that hint at a complex picture we’re not seeing or do they slide seamlessly into Pampered Noblewoman, Prostitute and Vaguely Maternal Older Woman Who Runs A Tavern Or Something?
If your protagonist is a fighter or magic user, do you show other women in those roles? If your society is more relaxed about sex discrimination, have you built a world that looks like it?
Have you built a world where your female characters don’t all have to be The Best At Everything, or is almost every female character placed where she can be extraordinary next to a bunch of male counterparts? Are you comfortable letting a female wizard or warrior be average or unimportant, or does she have to be one of the most skilled and powerful of them all, able to match or best all the men around her? On the other hand, are you comfortable having a female wizard or warrior be indisputably the most skilled or powerful out of the wizards or warriors, without drawing attention to her gender, placing her in competition with men, or having her be an exception to the rule because she’s female?
Are you letting your female characters be mediocre and un-extraordinary? Your world is full of powerful sorceresses, fierce battle maidens and calculating noblewomen, but do women do things in this world other than be Exemplary and Great and Awesome? If you’ve established that women do business and fight, do you have female soldiers carousing at bars and vaguely dull female Evil Minions Of The Dark Lord bumbling around doing evil bidding and female apprentices slacking on work or is every background woman we see competent and controlled and intelligent and doing whatever it is she’s doing without error, whereas only men are allowed to be foolish, impulsive, mess things up, or just be shown unflatteringly during the couple sentences we know them? In other words, does the world show women being unapologetically human beings or are all your female characters basically making up for being women by not doing anything that would badly represent their gender?
In particular, if you’re trying to show a society with gender equality, that means the dark lord is willing to hire women who are bumbling idiots as guards, and not just that some female wizards climbed their way to the top and became As Good As Men because they’re so badass they can snap god like a bunch of uncooked spaghetti.
