‘The shape of power is always the same; it is the shape of a tree. Root to tip, central trunk branching and re-branching, spreading wider in ever-thinner, searching fingers. The shape of power is the outline of a living thing straining outward, sending its fine tendrils a little further, and a little further yet.’

Suddenly, girls find that with a flick of their fingers they can inflict excruciating pain, or even cause death. Their lives are changed forever by this one simple fact, as they discover what it is to be the one holding the power.

Naomi Alderman’s new novel follows four protagonists – three female, one male – in a dystopian future in which women take power into their own hands. This is science fiction with a feminist twist that deepens into an exploration of what it means to hold destructive power in the palm of your hand.

The first half of this book is fantastic, a devastating image of what the world could be like if the status quo was turned on its head. It considers disturbing ideas about the nature of power and leaves you with questions that will continue to percolate in your head long after turning the final page. But the second half lost its way and, by the end, I didn’t really care what happened anymore.

There are some people who will read this novel and see it as something revolutionary and rebellious. I loved the concept behind the book and think that Alderman explores some really interesting ideas, but there were too many flaws in the story for me to enjoy it fully.

I had issues trying to sympathise with the characters. Margot, a politician running for mayor, gets the least amount of attention and felt as though she was the author’s least favourite character, and therefore turns out to be the reader’s least favourite as well. Perhaps Alderman was making a point in creating such unsympathetic characters, but in the end all it meant was that I didn’t particularly care about what happened to any of them.

The relationships between the characters also seemed forced, particularly between men and women, and I hated the way most of the women turned into puddles on the floor when confronted with a good-looking man. Each chapter is told from a different characters’ point of view but they overlap and the writing is almost the same in every one, so it becomes difficult to keep track of who is supposed to be telling the story at any one time. It would have been better, I think, if the characters had been kept separate, so Alderman could tell the story on a worldwide scale with characters occupying different parts of the globe.

There are some shocking scenes in the novel. Women turn against men and treat them the way they themselves have been treated for centuries – raping, torturing and enslaving. The result is an entirely bleak vision of the future, one which could have used more shades of light and dark to make it more realistic. I found it hard to believe that all women would turn so violently against men; surely there would be some women who would still be too afraid to turn against their oppressors, or else would be unwilling to do so?

The concept is the most interesting thing about this novel and the plot overwhelms the characters, reducing them to clichés (Roxy’s cockney accent was particularly ridiculous and annoying). Alderman should have spent more time on characterisation; after all, it’s through the characters that readers experience the story.

Empowering? Perhaps a little. Enjoyable and entertaining? At times. But revolutionary, ground-breaking? Not quite.

Many thanks to Penguin for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.