Reviews

Water & Power by Steven Dunn

evaallii's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

The novel water & power by Steven Dunn explores the emotional, social, and worldly politics of the US military. This book is not your typical page-by-page book–it is instead broken down into multiple types of parts, which include “”Interviews” with different characters, “Field Notes,” and other sections titled “Participation” and “Documents,” among others. There are also photographs and collages intermixed throughout the book. Through this, there is one recurring voice, the nameless narrator, and also a hodgepodge of voices that we are immersed in. Overall, this is a novel that both explores the complexities of being a part of the military, the tolls that it takes on a person, as well as critiques the current systems, highlighting the harsh reality of the job. 

This book is one that is always, always honest. Dunn doesn’t tell us the issues, he shows us, first hand, through multiple perspectives and forms. This novel made me stop and think multiple times, especially the ending. Throughout the book, he highlights issues, such as sexism, racism, homophobia, and the overall inhumanness that all are strong characteristics of the military. Through the interview parts, he shows that it’s not just the narrator that is suffering. The interviews felt like they were talking to me personally, telling me their stories–the way he wrote their voices sometimes made me feel like I could physically hear them. Second of all, Dunn intends on haunting you. When I say that, I mean that the way he used varying forms and language, and just the content of the plot, is physically displaying the themes he’s trying to get across. Our eyes travel with the narrator’s. One of the biggest strengths of this book is that Dunn rarely “tells” you why this system is wrong, rigged, and dangerous. Anyone can say that. But he proves it, makes you sit down and attempt–and when I say attempt, I don’t always mean you succeed–to understand, to grapple with all the different kinds of violence it ensues, and you sit there wondering how and why and how and why any of this can happen, and how it keeps happening, over and over and over again. The only feasible answers are ones that are hard to admit. And Dunn doesn’t give you time to process, not until the last page is turned over, because the point is that this isn’t a topic to be chewed up and spit away. 

This is where the power of this book lies. Dunn doesn’t make it easy for you, nor does he intend too. It’s a hard read because it’s real, unflinchingly raw, never attempting to mask the military under a redemining guise. This book made me realize just how much I don’t know. This book makes every reader question how they are supposed to respond to this violence, how to act, and frankly, shows that at the end of the day, this system is so, so big, and makes you think about your own personal relationship with it. You are forced to witness these atrocities through the narrator, and other characters, and thus forced to understand the weight they carry, both on a personal and international scale. 

Read it. It’s not a book you can unwind with at the end of the night, but one that makes you think, hard, and that still matters, too. 

categal's review against another edition

4.0

FANTASTIC. I loved the structure, I loved the glimpses of the narrator, I loved the attention to the realities of military life.
The ending is a full-on sucker punch.
Read this book.

ewynn610's review against another edition

1

frankenfine's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

5.0

aromarrie's review against another edition

read for "contemporary fiction" course

**i got a 10/10 on my paper for this book and am not sure what to think but i'll take it. i did try my absolute hardest to be as clear with my ideas as possible but my professor is a tough grader so i'm just surprised i got full marks.

content warnings//: gun violence, ptsd, explorations of grief, rape, discussion of sexual harrassment, child deaths, mass murder, alcoholism, domestic abuse, pro-military propoganda, suicide, bombings, animal deaths, hallucinations, graphic depictions of violence, misogyny, sexual abuse, gaslighting against rape victims, homophobia, anxiety, hospitalization, and depiction of war