Lush Library discussion

"The Power
Naomi Alderman
‘She throws her head back and pushes her chest forward and lets go of a huge blast right into the centre of his body. The rivulets and streams of red scarring run across his chest and up around his throat. She’d put her hand on his heart and stopped him dead.’

Suddenly – tomorrow or the day after – 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, and we look at the world in an entirely new light.

What if the power were in women’s hands?"

What do you think? Any predictions?

I'm 25% through and still not sure what I think of it tbh

It was a bit of a roller coaster but the end realy got in to my head and got me thinking. I'm glad I kept going - interesting!

I'm rather late to this party :) I think it's an interesting idea - feminism and the use/abuse of power. I'm not very far in at the moment, so I'm hoping my thoughts on it will clear as I progress.

How's everyone doing with the book? The end really got me thinking!

I'm about half way. It's definitely thought provoking! I find myself thinking about it at odd moments throughout the day.

It got me thinking but the end really made me think!

I finished last night, and I think on the whole I'm with Fiona - it does feel, especially at the end, that the lives of the characters are just touched on and not really developed quite as well as they could be.

I liked the "Handmaid's Tale" style epilogue, so it's clear that society continued somehow after the (nuclear?) war, and that the women did indeed win, and are still in power, as was predicted. I did wonder what happened to some of the characters (Roxy and Tunde, Mother Eve, Jos...) after the war, whether they survived and what happened to them. It felt a bit unfinished, in some ways.

I liked that it made me think, though. Society in the hands of women wasn't really all that much of an improvement, in the end.

Yes I get that Fiona, I just finished today and it made me quite uncomfortable at times, the thought that women would then treat men just as they had been treated previously. I think we don't empathise or care about the characters much because none of them seemed to care or empathise for anyone?
It's definitely thought provoking and I imagine provokes strong reactions in most people, I felt quite angry at parts of the book

The thing is, though (and as much as much as I would like to believe otherwise) I think there's a certain contingent of society that would treat men as they had previously been treated. Some of the scenes were difficult to read, for exactly that reason.

I guess part of it is the whole nature/nurture thing. We're saying none of the characters care about anyone else, but then a lot of the characters hadn't had anyone to care about them previously. It doesn't mean it's right to go around treating others as you've been treated, but...it happens.