The shape of power is always the same: it is infinite, it is complex, it is forever branching. While it is alive like a tree, it is growing; while it contains itself, it is a multitude. Its directions are unpredictable; it obeys its own laws.

I am speechless. I don't even know what I think, other than simply this: power corrupts.

The book starts so simply: teenage girls discover that they have this power, and can teach older women how to use it. But the author doesn't skim over all the repercussions of this, and as the novel progresses we see how deep things go.

This is so brilliant. Naomi Alderman has levels and levels in the text which push and prod at the nature of power and how it can change a person, and a society. She expertly flips the power dynamic so skillfully that there were several moments when I barked with laughter to see a man experience the mental gymnastics that women and people of color so often do.

And also, it's an extremely well-written and well-paced story.

One of them says, "Why did they do it?"
And the other answers, "Because they could."
That is the only answer there ever is.