Mini Reviews: The Blue Girl || The Power

The Blue Girl by Laurie Foos

Genre: Magical realism fiction

Pages: 220

Publication date: June 2015
Content warning: Drowning, mental and physical illnesses, dysfunctional families, rebellious teenagers

In this small lakeside town, mothers bake their secrets into moon pies they feed to a silent blue girl. Their daughters have secrets too—that they can't sleep, that they might sleep with a neighbor boy, that they know more than they let on. But when the daughters find the blue girl, everyone's carefully held silences shake loose.

Well, that was interesting. This book is nearly impossible for me to review because it’s smarter than me. I don’t think I understand the point of it. I’m confused about pretty much everything, but I’m going to give reviewing it my best shot.

Likes: I love magical realism, so when I saw The Blue Girl at a used bookstore and read the synopsis, I knew I needed it in my life. It’s a very strange novel about overworked mothers, rebellious daughters, family secrets, and a blue-skinned girl who ties them all together.

The story is told from six perspectives: three teenage daughters and their mothers. Each character has a different relationship/fascination/obsession with a silent, medically fragile, blue girl who loves moon pies. They want to know who she is and why she’s so unusual looking. They make up excuses to get away from their own families and spend time with her.

My favorite part of the book is the dynamics between the mothers and daughters. I think it’s realistic that the mothers are passing their families’ burdens on to their daughters. They’re training their daughters to become caretakers and secret-keepers. It’s sad because the mothers are raising their female children to have the exact same lifestyle that’s making the mothers unhappy.

My second-favorite part is the setting. The story takes place in a small lake town during summer. It’s a tourist destination where people go to have fun, but the characters definitely aren’t having fun. They’re dealing with serious family drama.

“I remember wondering if I had been that way with my own mother once, always distant, always trying to disappear, always dismissing her, she who had held me in her womb and squeezed me out. How ungrateful we all once were, we daughters who become mothers only to learn how it feels, the endless cycle of rejection.” – The Blue Girl

Dislikes: I’m confused. I was confused the whole time I was reading. I don’t understand why any of the events in this novel happen. To me, the plot just feels pointlessly weird. I don’t understand the meaning of the blue girl. I guess feeding her moon pies makes the mothers feel better about their failures as mothers? I don’t know. The “secrets” they feed the blue girl aren’t actually secrets because the other characters know about them. The blue girl doesn’t really do anything for anybody. Why are the characters so obsessed with her? What is the point of this story?

The Bottom Line: I kept hoping to become un-confused, but that never happened. I’m still confused.

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Genre: Dystopia

Pages: 387

Publication date: October 2016

Content warning: War, death, sexual assault, abuse, torture, drug use, murder, crime

In The Power the world is a recognizable 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 agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world changes utterly.

Likes: Wow, this is a bleak take on human behavior. It’s probably realistic because people never seem to learn from history, but damn, this book is depressing.

The premise is unique. One day, teenage girls realize they have the ability to electrocute people just by touching them. They can pass this power on to other women (and to some men). As the electrocution ability spreads to women around the globe, wars break out and governments topple. A few selfish people use the chaos to seize control and remake the world in a way that benefits them. Even though this is a far-fetched dystopia, its themes are relevant. It’s a story about political corruption and lopsided power dynamics.

The first half of the book is brilliant. The pace is fast. A lot of change happens quickly. The female characters use their new power to escape from abusive relationships and to overthrow the governments of Middle Eastern countries. There’s a character who’s dealing with the aftermath of sexual assault. Those scenes are heartbreaking. Reading that character’s struggle stuck in my head more than all of the death and destruction in the rest of the book.

It’s fascinating to see traditional gender roles get swapped. The women are the physically strong ones. The men become afraid that women are going to injure them. I know it sounds awful, but I laughed when the woman politician electrocutes a rival male politician on live TV. Everyone claims they’re outraged and would never vote for her. Then she wins the election and faces zero consequences for attacking someone.

“We’re only pretending everything is normal because we don’t know what else to do.”  - The Power

Dislikes: The second half of the book draaaaags. It drags so much that I almost gave up on finishing it. I kept going because you’re told in the beginning that the characters destroy the world. I wanted to know why/how they did it.

Once the characters become world leaders, the character development stops. They spend the whole second half doing awful things because they want to stay in control. There’s no reason for them to change their bad behavior because they have “the power” and can do whatever they want. Since the characters stop growing, I lost interest in them. The second half of the book feels long and stagnant.

The Bottom Line: I got bored. I flew through the first half and then nearly gave up on the second half.