Book Review: The Power by Naomi Alderman

What would happen if women were given powers that could strike fear into the hearts of men? With this interesting premise, Alderman explores how the world’s current power structure is upended. The Power sets forth to deliver a compelling feminist message, but its lackluster characters and storylines made it hard for me to truly appreciate the book’s overarching plot.

TRIGGER WARNING: Rape

 

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Pages: 341

Genres: Dystopia

RATING: ★★☆☆☆

 

 

Goodreads
Book Depository
Barnes and Noble

 

 

In The Power the world is a recognisable place: there’s a rich Nigerian kid who lounges around the family pool; a foster girl whose religious parents hide their true nature; a local American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But something vital has changed, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power – they can cause agonising pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world changes utterly.

This extraordinary novel by Naomi Alderman, a Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year and Granta Best of British writer, is not only a gripping story of how the world would change if power was in the hands of women but also exposes, with breath-taking daring, our contemporary world.

The feeling of freedom. With such immense power at their fingertips women are suddenly given the opportunity to take from men, and they take advantage almost immediately. A gradual realization of ‘this is finally my chance’. There was a scene where women flood the streets and rejoiced and I could feel their elation of being free. I enjoyed reading women rebelling against their oppressors and young girls exploring their abilities. I felt jealous as the characters revelled in the power coursing through their veins, and almost wished it for myself.

The characters were not very compelling and some storylines fell flat. The book follows four characters, each with a different perspective on how this power has taken hold of the nation, and I only really liked two – Tunde, the male Nigerian journalist who follows the feminist movement, and Roxy, the young but powerful female head of a prominent London crime family. Tunde allowed me to see the most authentic responses from men and women alike and Roxy’s badass attitude and what happens to her throughout the book really made me empathize with her. On the other hand, Allie had a religious storyline that had me confused and Margot’s political power trip bored me.

A stream of consciousness writing style that I didn’t care for. Alderman writes in third person, but delves deep into the minds of her characters and takes on the world from their perspective such that you might as well have been reading each chapter in first person. Yet somehow the writing seems very removed and detached from these characters and made it hard to feel interested in their storylines. Perspectives seemed to blur together with the exception of a few personality quirks that set them apart.

An unsatisfying ending. I do have reservations on how Alderman ended the book – what started as a subtle evolution of the world’s mindset and its impact on the status quo suddenly turned into a blatant role reversal with women subjecting men to what they had undergone for many years. It felt rushed and disappointingly uncreative, as if Alderman couldn’t think up a satisfying ending so she turned to the most obvious solution. Is this what would have happened if women had powers? Maybe. Probably. I don’t know. But I didn’t feel convinced that it would have happened as quickly or as cruelly as Alderman portrayed it, and I would like to think that women would try to learn from the mistakes of men rather than immediately following in their footsteps.

The Power starts with an interesting premise and a fascinating view of how women from different backgrounds could rise up in society if given a chance. However it devolves into vicious savagery that left me hollow and seemed like an extremely pessimistic view of women. My lack of attachment to the characters also made it difficult for me to really invest myself in the story. Though a thought-provoking book with lots of potential, The Power just didn’t deliver as well as I’d hoped.

Buddy Read Recap: The Farm by Joanne Ramos

This week I did a buddy read with Sophie @ reading women writers worldwide and we read The Farm by Joanne Ramos, the story of Jane, a Filipino immigrant who agrees to work for the Farm and become a surrogate for some of the wealthiest people on the planet for an absurdly large sum. What she does not realize is that she belongs to the Farm, and and this job may have been more than she had bargained for.

Sophie is from the UK and I was born and raised in the Philippines, so we each had different cultural insights on the book. Here are some of the things we talked about:

• The book has a dystopian premise that seems callous and exploitative, but Ramos writes it in a way to make it sound entirely plausible in the near future. Sophie brought up this article that speaks of Cambodian women given suspended jail terms for acting as surrogates for Chinese clients in a scenario eerily similar to the books.
• My family has employed maids in the past, and I found it Ramos’s portrayal of maids and their employers harshly stereotypical. Sophie brought up the fact that perhaps the cultural divide between American employers and their Filipino maids was the cause of the discrepancy between my experiences and Ramos’s writings.
• We both agreed that the ending was too convenient and unsatisfying – the main villain of the story, Mae Yu, was hastily redeemed by the end of the book. The Farm also got away scot free with its exploitation of immigrant women, which made for a disheartening conclusion.

As my first buddy read, I had a lot of fun doing this! I think being able to discuss the book with another person really made me understand it more, especially with a controversial book such as this one with many racial and cultural themes that can be interpreted in so many different ways. I hope to do more of these in the future!

You can find my review of the book here. Also check out Sophie’s review here!

Book Review: The Farm by Joanne Ramos

Welcome to The Farm, where you can get pampered at an extravagant retreat under one condition – you need to carry the child of a billionaire client. The Farm revolves around a Filipina immigrant who agrees to be a ‘Host’ for the farm and her struggle as she yearns for her daughter in the outside world. As a Filipina myself I was pulled in by the premise and the debut of a Filipina author. Overall the book was enjoyable – though the plot was mediocre, I grew to like the characters as they developed through the book.

 

 

The Farm by Joanne Ramos

Pages: 327

Genre: Dystopia

RATING: ★★★☆☆

 

Goodreads
Book Depository
Barnes and Noble

 

Nestled in the Hudson Valley is a sumptuous retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, private fitness trainers, daily massages—and all of it for free. In fact, you get paid big money—more than you’ve ever dreamed of—to spend a few seasons in this luxurious locale. The catch? For nine months, you belong to the Farm. You cannot leave the grounds; your every move is monitored. Your former life will seem a world away as you dedicate yourself to the all-consuming task of producing the perfect baby for your überwealthy clients.

Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines and a struggling single mother, is thrilled to make it through the highly competitive Host selection process at the Farm. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her own young daughter’s well-being, Jane grows desperate to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm or she will lose the life-changing fee she’ll receive on delivery—or worse.

I disliked the character stereotypes, but enjoyed reading them grow out of it. In the beginning I was highly disappointed with the book’s racial stereotypes. Jane was a Filipino immigrant with a slew of bad decisions, including dropping out of highschool for a boyfriend and being an irresponsible nanny. Reagan was a young white college graduate blissfully unaware of her privilege with a desire to do good, even offering herself as a Host as a charitable move (as if billionaires needed charity). Even Mae Yu, the Chinese-American executive who runs the Farm, is portrayed as cold-hearted and willing to do anything for money. However as the book went on, I enjoyed the character development. Reagan comes to understand Jane’s plight and that of immigrants beyond the surface level, and Jane gains the courage to make a stand instead of meekly bowing to her superiors. Reagan and Jane grow a genuine bond and their friendship was truly heartwarming.

Character motivations were well explored. Every character had different ambitions and goals, and Ramos did well to delve deep into them when writing in their perspective. My favorite character to read was Evelyn (known in the book as ‘Ate’, Tagalog for older sister), whose time as an immigrant struggling in America has given her a practical attitude. Though family is what drives her, she is not averse to snatching opportunities in ways that may seem compassionless to some but unavoidable to her. I liked how each character’s diverse experiences factored into their actions.

The ‘Farm’ was nothing sinister. I was expecting a plot twist to reveal the Farm’s true nature, but it never happened. The Farm is what it proclaims itself to be, a place where surrogates are micromanaged to produce the best babies. Though this was somewhat disappointing, I did enjoy how Ramos made this in itself feel sinister and disturbing, as the Hosts are painfully aware of the control these people have on their lives yet they have no choice but to smile.

The ending gave everyone a free pass. Sadly the book ends with the villains prevailing and continuing to exploit desperate immigrants as the Farm continues to operate and even expand. Mae Yu, who had unsympathetically manipulated many of these women, had a dramatic change of heart and was redeemed in the book’s epilogue.

Ultimately I enjoyed The Farm for its characters, who started out unremarkable but who I grew an emotional attachment to by the end of the book. Though imperfect, it is a novel that speaks of issues that could plague our not-so-distant future and is worth reading to gain perspective on the struggles of an immigrant’s life in America.

This was a buddy read done with Sophie @ reading women writers worldwide. Go check out her blog! You can read her review of the book here and a recap of our buddy read discussion here.

Book Review: Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang

I wanted to commit to something more “bite-sized”, and decided to read a famed anthology. All in all, Exhalation had some interesting theories on the nature of the universe, although the novel may have been better written as a series of speculative essays rather than attempting to disguise them as fiction stories using flimsy characters and plot.

 

 

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang

Pages: 352

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories

RATING: ★★★☆☆

 

Goodreads
Book Depository
Barnes and Noble

 

 

This much-anticipated second collection of stories is signature Ted Chiang, full of revelatory ideas and deeply sympathetic characters. In “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and the temptation of second chances. In the epistolary “Exhalation,” an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications not just for his own people, but for all of reality. And in “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” a woman cares for an artificial intelligence over twenty years, elevating a faddish digital pet into what might be a true living being. Also included are two brand-new stories: “Omphalos” and “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom.”

In this fantastical and elegant collection, Ted Chiang wrestles with the oldest questions on earth—What is the nature of the universe? What does it mean to be human?—and ones that no one else has even imagined. And, each in its own way, the stories prove that complex and thoughtful science fiction can rise to new heights of beauty, meaning, and compassion.

An exploration of technology reminiscent of Black Mirror. With each story is a completely new world, brought about by a series of “what ifs” proposed by Chiang and reimagined as the future of mankind. Chiang’s imagination runs wild with each story, dreaming up a magical gate that transports you through time as well as a world where humans have progressed to the point that they are now built by machinery and run by air. I was always left in awe of the innovation and creativity apparent in every dystopian story Chiang penned.

A plethora of innovative ideas but little else. My biggest gripe with Chiang’s writing was the lack of depth present in the characters and plot of most of his stories. He is entranced with world-building and places a lot of focus on describing the intricacies of the imaginative technologies or transformed world order he’s proposed – the nature of its conception, the science behind how it works, its limitations, etcetera. Oftentimes Chiang would pause the story altogether to go on a long exposition that felt abrupt and out of place in an effort to tell you more about the world he so lovingly created. His shorter, narrative pieces felt like excuses for a character to go on a monologue describing a lengthy thought experiment. Without interesting characters or plots to hold on to, these stories felt meaningless and empty.

Several standouts worth mentioning. I found that I generally appreciated Chiang’s longer novellas as opposed to his short ones. “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” is a moving story of a woman who grows attached to an AI pet and her heartfelt efforts to ensure his survival in a rapidly evolving digital world. “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” echoes the episode “Shut Up and Dance” from Black Mirror, and explores the impact of using a recording device to preserve all one’s memories on the relationship between a father and his daughter. “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” delves into the negative emotions of anger, jealousy, and sadness that could arise with the ability to observe other parallel timelines, and questions what looking at these timelines could reveal about one’s moral character. With these stories I got to know the characters and grow attached to them, and there was real character development stemming from their interaction with the novel technologies Chiang spins up in these stories. When Chiang focuses on the people in his stories and allows the technology to stay in the background, they become a lot more emotionally appealing and compelling to read.

If you’re a fan of science fiction and dystopia, Chiang delivers an plethora of stories that is sure to sate your appetite!

Book Review: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

I don’t often read nonfiction books, but John Carreyrou’s promise to uncover the biggest scam in Silicon Valley was too tempting to ignore – and boy, did he deliver. In Bad Blood, Carreyrou takes his readers for a whirlwind ride into the depths of Theranos, a promising unicorn startup that crashed in 2015 when it was revealed that its CEO Elizabeth Holmes had been duping investors and was selling defective products and tests to patients. In his novel, Carreyrou reveals the sensational tales from Theranos employees and business partners that gets more thrilling with each and every page.

 

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
by John Carreyrou

Pages: 339

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, Journalism

RATING: ★★★★★

 

Goodreads
Book Depository
Barnes and Noble

 

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work.

For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at The Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company’s value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors. Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.

Carreyrou paints a perfect villain. We never get to peek into the mind of tech genius Elizabeth Holmes, leaving her a complete enigma. Meanwhile Carreyrou describes the woman’s diabolic schemes to dupe investors – from faking test results and projected earnings to ‘hacking’ rival company products for their own tests, Holmes stopped at nothing in her determination to achieve fame and glory. A master manipulator, Holmes used her enthusiastic and driven personality to charm everyone into believing in her vision to save thousands of people from disease. Inspired by her ambitious zeal, distinguished politicians, celebrities, and investors fell for her scam, pouring money into a product that never came to fruition. She fired whistleblowers and employees who protested against the immorality of her deception, and set out to ruin their lives. Even worse, she was indifferent to the hundreds of patients she put in harms way due to her faulty technology, placing their lives in the balance as they based life-changing decisions on the results on the results of her medical tests. With every page my hatred for Holmes grew, and I could not wait to get to the part where justice was delivered.

A long and arduous path to the truth. Carreyrou unravels the inner workings of Theranos slowly, revealing little by little the stories of individual employees who uncover inconsistencies within the company that made them raise questions on the legitimacy of Theranos and its product. As the employees inched closer and closer to the truth, I couldn’t stop turning the page in my desperation to find out when Holmes and her deceptions would be exposed and she could finally get her due. The reveal was slow and tortuous, but it only kept me hungering for more. Carreyrou builds up the anticipation and suspense, and it felt like I was reading a riveting thriller instead of a nonfiction book.

An easy read for a layman. Understanding the medical laws and regulations Holmes sidestepped would be extremely confusing for someone unexperienced, but Carreyrou makes sure to explain it well so anyone could understand. Similarly, he breaks down the mechanisms of Theranos’s products and their failures, describing in detail why her faulty products were so dangerous. This made the book an easy read for someone who knows nothing about medical devices.

An abrupt ending that leaves one wanting more. The book ends with the publishing of the Wall Street Journal articles that proved fatal to Theranos and brought the downfall of the company. As Holmes is currently standing for trial, there isn’t much more to write, but I would love to read a piece on her current status. With the way Carreyrou has described her remorseless actions, I can’t help but look forward to her punishment for endangering patients with her deception.

Carreyrou keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the whole ordeal, and I felt immense satisfaction reading Holmes’s company slowly unravel through the efforts of whistleblowers and journalists alike. With all that was at stake, I can only be grateful for Carreyrou for his efforts to uncover this tremendous fraud.

Book Review: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Recommended by the likes of Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey, An American Marriage isn’t afraid to dig deep into sensitive topics. It is a heart-wrenching love story that throws a marriage in disarray, and through Jones’s eloquent characters we read a deeply moving tale of a couple broken by the wrath of racial injustice, and their struggle as they attempt to piece themselves back together in the aftermath.

 

 

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Pages: 308

Genres: Romance, Literary Fiction

RATING: ★★★★★

 

Goodreads
Book Depository
Barnes and Noble

 

 

Newlyweds, Celestial and Roy, are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive and she is artist on the brink of an exciting career. They are settling into the routine of their life together, when they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.

This stirring love story is a deeply insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward- with hope and pain- into the future.

No one is perfect. Each character is self-aware of his or her flaws, and through each character’s point of view, you can read their internal struggle as they wrestle with their emotions. Throughout the book Roy and Celestial recall how they met and fell in love, a  tale made even more tragic as they are continuously ripped out of their nostalgia and reminded of the harsh truth of their reality. In the love triangle between Roy, Celestial and Andre, each character struggles with their flaws – Roy resents his wife despite understanding her predicament, Celestial is torn between her loyalty to her husband and her feelings for another man, and Andre grapples with justifying his relationship with Celestial in the face of his best man’s imprisonment.  I was conflicted over who’s side I should take, and realized that in these painful circumstances no one could truly be faulted for their shortcomings.

Exploring the idea of marriage. You see how much Roy’s wrongful conviction has ripped this couple apart. It’s easy to claim that Celestial has a duty to her husband as his wife during the most difficult time of his life, but Jones calls this into question. In a marriage that lasted barely a year before thrown into disarray, what do these two really owe each other? The marriage vows “till death do us part” seem so simple to say, yet so difficult to fulfil.

Profound, well written characters. Jones creates authentic characters with diverse backgrounds yet united by the victimization of racism in America. You see how the color of their skin has permeated their lives, but Jones writes it in a way that seems natural instead of overbearing and preachy. Race is only one aspect of these characters – at their heart they are strong-willed individuals with intense personalities and powerful emotions that form the core of what makes this story so personal and impactful.

An American Marriage is a thought-provoking, insightful look into the impact of a heartbreaking blow to a fragile marriage. Jones writes a powerful novel on the consquences of the country’s injustices, writing a solemn but powerful love story that is sure to resonate for years to come.

Book Review: Recursion by Blake Crouch

How to even review this book? I feel like there isn’t much I can say without being too spoiler heavy. Needless to say that this Goodread’s choice award winner was an engrossing read. Though the characters and the ending were slightly lacking, ultimately Crouch delivers a masterful speculative science fiction novel.

 

Recursion by Blake Crouch

Pages: 336

Genres: Science Fiction, Thriller

RATING: ★★★★☆

 

Goodreads
Book Depository
Barnes and Noble

 

 

Memory makes reality.

That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.

That’s what neuroscientist Helena Smith believes. It’s why she’s dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious memories. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.

As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face-to-face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease—a force that attacks not just our minds but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it.

But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them?

Mind-blowing ideas on memory. Though I am not a master of physics and have no idea if Crouch’s proposed theories on memories have any scientific plausibility, he makes a convincing argument that made me question the nature of time. I cannot understate how thought-provoking this book was for me – the idea that our memories and our past are not what they seem haunted me for days after reading. I don’t want to say more without spoiling the book, but trust me when I say it makes you take a step back and reconsider what you’ve known to be true.

Morals are put to the test. Helena starts off with a philanthropic cause – creating a device that can allow people to relive their memories with breathtaking clarity. But in doing so she accidentally opens the possibilities to so much more, allowing Crouch to explore moral boundaries with her new invention. Reading the plot take a horrific dark turn had me hooked, and I couldn’t stop reading as the consequences of Helena’s creation unraveled before me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t care much for the characters. With respect to the two main characters, I would say that I preferred Barry’s character over Helena’s – the former goes through some heart-wrenching emotional trials that really made me feel empathic for him, while Helena came off as distant and unfeeling, her sights solely set on completing her neuroscience research to build her memory recreation technologies. When the two meet, the chemistry felt forced, and their shared bond was developed offscreen in what can be considered a ‘time skip’, resulting in a sudden closeness that seemed unconvincing to me. The villain was cartoonishly cliche, believing that “mankind must be allowed to tread their own path even if it meant destruction” or a similar generic evil motive.

A prolonged ending without much substance. I knew that the calamity was to be resolved somehow, but Crouch insisted on extending the ending with Helena and Barry’s repeated attempts to stop the destruction of mankind, each attempt very similar to the last. By the fourth or fifth time I felt like the book had overstayed its welcome, and I was just about ready to see him wrap the book up.

The book is definitely carried by its plot and its fascinating theories on memory and time, which really do make you question the nature of reality as we perceive it. After reading this, I’m hoping Crouch’s other novel Dark Matter is just as good!