The Quickening: a brilliant, subversive and unexpected dystopia for fans of Vox and The Handmaid's Tale

I was really looking forward to reading this book after I won a review copy from Readers First. The book is set in a dystopian world where women rule the UK and men are a secondary being. At first I was gripped by the starting chapters as the story settled to reveal how Dana, the current prime minister, managed to create this ruling power and completely switch the power balance. However as I got further into the book I just started to lose a connection to the plot. It is meant to be a dystopian reality so I guess that is the point but I found that it just got a bit too weird as the motivations of the woman in charge became more and more clear. I felt that after the start the story struggled to go anywhere. There was no major plot with just different elements of the world focused on. When there was an element of a plot I found that it just suddenly ended with no obvious moving arc and a sudden finish. Overall it was an interesting read but I didn't think the story arc was particularly good.