Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

382 reviews

trapdorr's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Dark but intriguing plot line. Interesting take on the human condition and survival. The premise seems so extreme and dystopian but it’s not that far off of the reality of some “third world” nations. I was worried the novel would come off preachy but it didn’t. I think this is a book I’ll think about for years to come. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gun violence, and Rape

Moderate: Sexual assault, Kidnapping, and Grief

Minor: Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Police brutality, and Classism

imperatorprincess's review

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

If you don't like this book within the first fifteen pages, I'd advise putting it down.  It's so relentless and extreme in the vibe it sets that those who don't like it at first won't find anything else waiting for them.  I landed somewhere in the middle, just like most of this book.  The characters are decently sympathetic but not fleshed out well (there's just too many for the book's own good).  The worldbuilding is intriguing but so unflinchingly nihilistic that it's hard to feel anything.  After a while I'm no longer horrified, much less compelled, but just numb to all the violence and waiting for something, anything, to provide a spark of hope.  Luaren's Earthseed plan might fit the bill if she made any concrete efforts to progress it or actually used it to better other people's lives, which she doesn't seem to care about all that much.  I wasn't horribly disappointed, and I can see why some folks adore this series.  All I can do is shrug.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Misogyny, Police brutality, and Pregnancy

Minor: Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, and Alcohol

hotkoolaidpotato's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Octavia Butler is amazing. If I could give this book 10 stars I would. This book is definitely a modern day classic and scares me with how realistic it was.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Trafficking, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Incest, Pedophilia, Racism, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail

heidi_mcj's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

A very dark rather terrifying look at our society falling apart. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Violence, Trafficking, and Fire/Fire injury

nejmia_remis's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury

lemonsaurus's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

"A sower went out to sow their seed; and as they sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell upon the thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And others fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bore fruit an hundredfold. " - The Bible, Authorized King James Version, St. Luke 8 5-8

This is a classic for a reason, and should be required reading, frankly. The present Butler describes is only scifi in that it was speculative in the time she wrote it. While things are not this bad in the US yet, I still qualify that with the word 'yet', and the many parallels to our current situation are a constant reminder that we may not be walking in the general direction of North through the rotting corpse of our country, but we are within a stones throw of it. Lakes dried down to fractions of their former size is actively occuring, drinking water is scarce and only getting scarcer. We have a president named a version of Don, elected in 2024, on the platform of "Make American Great Again", in some cases gladly offering up our own rights in the name of a promise so esoteric and decoupled from our actual current situation it almost feels like we place votes on what best fantasy novel we want to believe is true the most. 

"I wish you could have known this country when it was still salvageable"

The question begs, if the country ultimately ended up in the situation it was in, was it ever really salvageable? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Slavery, Violence, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Trafficking, Cannibalism, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Chronic illness, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Incest, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Colonisation, and Classism

isa182's review against another edition

challenging hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Blood, Police brutality, Cannibalism, and Murder

djtoebeans's review against another edition

dark hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, and Gun violence

Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Violence, Trafficking, Cannibalism, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Addiction, Child abuse, Cursing, Drug abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Racism, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Classism

thisreadingcorner's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

In Parable of the Sower, Butler introduces us to Lauren Olamina, a teenage girl navigating a dystopian California in 2024 (published in 1993). In the discussion guide at the back of my edition, Butler names her inspiration quite succinctly - she’s not a psychic, the doom and gloom of Lauren’s world was a natural extrapolation of all the failures of the world she existed (and we continue to exist) in. The “growing rich/poor gap…throwaway labor…our willingness to build and fill prisons, our reluctance to build and repair schools and libraries…our assault on the environment…global warming…food-price driven inflation…increased vulnerability to disease.” You get it.

Through her fight for survival and the birth of her belief system - Earthseed - Lauren learns a lot about community and community building, loss, safety, love, and power. The parallels are never ending - policed borders causing increased violence and racial polarization, economic instability collapsing class and privilege across the nation, refugees being marched from city to city in pursuit of “safety” from oppressive forces, capitalistic exploitation of the working class, and a despotic president to top it all off.

Butler’s questions capture it best: Where are we going? What sort of future are we creating? Is this the kind of future you want to live in? If It isn’t, what can we do to create a better future? Individually and in groups, what can we do?

Perhaps we’d be in a better place if more of our individual and group actions came in response to these prompts, and that is a great guide to keep in mind as we enter this season of hibernation and annual renewal.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence

Moderate: Child death, Death, and Death of parent

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual content

just_ari's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

It felt so right to read this book at the end of 2024. This book was written in 1993 but takes place from 2024-2026 in the United States where things have been going seriously downhill since the 2000s. Climate change has cause horrible natural disasters, disease has spread, and extreme poverty is all around. It is astounding how much Octavia Butler was able to predict about the future. Yes, her idea of the modern world was more extreme than the actual world we live in but themes throughout the book resonated closely to me and it's scary to think about how close we currently are to living in Butler's version of the world. The main character of this book reminded me of the importance of emergency preparation and as well as the importance of having and relying on your community. This was probably the most important book I read this year. While parts of it scared me about our future, it also gave me a vision to prepare myself. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in this series, Parable of the Talents. Octavia Butler is an inspirational author and I highly recommend this book to everyone. Prepare yourself when reading it because it gets really dark but know that once you have finished you will see the world in a different light.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Slavery, Violence, Grief, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Sexual assault and Cannibalism