Incredibly well done.

Alderman turns gender completely upside down and, for the first half, I'm sure I'm not the only woman reading it who felt empowered by the story. Women are bursting free of the confines men have placed on them in some of the parts of the world where they've been treated the worst. There's a sense of liberation and exhilaration.

Until there isn't. Alderman turns the concept of women being the 'gentler, fairer, more compassionate sex' on its head. This isn't about gender, it's about power and what that power does to those who have the most of it. For all that it tears this notion apart, it remains a fervent stab at the contemporary inequality that is absolutely undeniable in the books closing pages.