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carolita25's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Sexual violence, Rape, Murder, Child death, Abandonment, Death, and Violence
keyradiator's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
There is a thing or two in this book that are structurally suboptimal, but overall, the pacing is biting and cohesive, the characters have deeeeep stories and flaws, and the world building is some of the best I've ever read.
This book is dark. You can't quite prepare yourself for just how dark it gets, yet, somehow Butler manages to make a beam of hope cut through all of the noise that carries you through. Please read this book!
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Police brutality, Child abuse, Classism, Gore, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual content, Gun violence, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Rape, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Abandonment, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Drug abuse, Sexual violence, Slavery, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Excrement, Murder, Colonisation, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Car accident, Sexual harassment, Violence, Child death, Medical content, Trafficking, Self harm, Sexual assault, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness
Moderate: Police brutality, Cannibalism, Body horror, Animal death, Vomit, and War
Minor: Self harm, Car accident, Child abuse, Addiction, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Excrement, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, and Racism
mac23's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Drug abuse, Abandonment, Animal death, Addiction, Cultural appropriation, Death of parent, Cannibalism, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Chronic illness, Sexual violence, Child death, Abortion, Animal cruelty, Slavery, Cancer, Death, and Classism
cynopsis's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Cannibalism, Child abuse, Death, Body horror, Murder, Drug abuse, Drug use, Abandonment, Child death, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Slavery, Addiction, Animal death, Blood, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Torture, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Police brutality, Sexual assault, and Violence
djeanine's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.75
Graphic: Child abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Animal death, Body horror, Abandonment, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Grief, Violence, Animal cruelty, Sexual assault, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Child death, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, and Torture
miss_fish's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Abandonment, Racism, Domestic abuse, Animal death, Murder, Blood, Sexual violence, Drug use, Death of parent, Child abuse, Rape, Grief, Violence, Death, Torture, Pregnancy, Cannibalism, and Child death
mmestitches's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Child abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Cursing, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Classism, Ableism, Cannibalism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Hate crime, Incest, Body horror, Child death, Grief, Colonisation, Death, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Mass/school shootings, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Hate crime, Pedophilia, Murder, Grief, Suicide, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Physical abuse, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Fire/Fire injury, War, Trafficking, Torture, Suicide attempt, Slavery, Sexual content, Self harm, Sexism, Rape, Gore, Police brutality, Gun violence, Emotional abuse, and Dysphoria
noahsingh's review against another edition
4.25
Graphic: Violence, Sexual assault, Racism, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Medical content, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Police brutality, Death, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Gun violence, Death of parent, Abandonment, Rape, Sexual assault, Child death, Addiction, Incest, and Cannibalism
Minor: Gore, Grief, Drug use, Drug abuse, Classism, and Cancer
samdalefox's review
- 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
5.0
A type of book that reaches beyond the traditional imagination and limitations of dystopian scifi. It felt so real, so easy to read, so important. As soon as I started reading I was hooked, and I would have finished it in one sitting if I wasn't interrupted. The story is both depressingly accurate in its assessment and predicitions of human society's collapse, but also beuatifully imaginative and almost optimisitic. The whole concept of Earthseed is fascinating and I'm sure there are many philosophical, psychological, anthropological, intersectional feminist, and theological interpretations from others I could read up on. I've been trying to read less books that will fuel my climate anxiety, but this strangely helped me, I felt less alone. Octavia E. Butler understood these dangers within our society so many years ago, I felt solidarity. I felt inspired and compelled to action. I have already bought the second book of the duology. I particularly enjoyed that Butler inroduced the concept of
Quotes:
"All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change."
"Then, someday when people are able to pay more attention to what I say than how old I am, I'll use these verses to pry them loose from their rotting past, and maybe push them into saving themselves and building a future that makes sense. That's if everything will just hold together for a few more years."
"Sometimes naming a thing - giving a name or discovering a name - helps one to begin to understand it. Knowing the name of a thing and knowing what that thing is for gives me even more of a handle on it."
"Things are changing now, too. Our adults haven't been wiped out by a plague so they're still anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back. But things have change a lot, and they'll change more. Things are always changing. This is just one of the big jumps instead of the little step-by-step changes that are easier to take. People have changed the climate of the world. Now they're waiting for the old days to come back."
"She was afraid, and that made her defensive."
"Civilisation is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation. Civilisation, like intelligence, may serve well, serve adequately, or fail to serve its adaptive function. When civilisation fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces. EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING."
"Intelligence is ongoing, individual adaptability. Adaptations that an intelligent specied may make in a single generation, other species may make over many generations of selective breeding and selective dying. Yet intelligence is demanding. If it is misdirected by accident or by intent, it can foster its own orgies of breeding and dying. EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING."
"Once people get the idea that it's all right to take what you want and destroy the rest, who know's when they'll stop."
"We aren't gang types. I don't want gang types with their need to dominate, rob and terrorize. And yet me wight have to dominate. We might have to rob to survive, and even terrorize to scare of or kill enemies. We'll have to be very careful how we allow our needs to shape us. But we must have arable land, a dependable water supply, and enough freedom from attack to let us establish ourselves and grow."
"Worship is no good without action. With action, it's only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, eases your mind."
"Kindness eases change. EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING"
"Oh, God, there you go again. You've always got a disaster up your sleeve."
"I see what's out there. You see it too. You just deny it."
"I believe in something that I think my dying, denying, backward-looking people need. I don't have all of it yet. I don't even know how to oass on what I do have. I've got to learn how to do that. It scares me how many things I've got to learn. How will I learn them?"
"Belief initiates and guide action, or it does nothing. - earthseed: the books of the living."
"Embrace diversity, Unite - Or be divided, robbed, rules, killed, by those you see as prey. Embrace diversity or be destroyed."
"'Live!' Dad said. 'That's all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don't know if good times are coming back again. But I know it won't matter if we don't survive these times.'...And Dad is right...but he doesn't go far enough... It isn't enough for us to just survive, limping along, playing business as usual while things get worse and worse. If that's the shape we give to God, then someday we must become too weak - too poor, too hungry, too sick - to defend outselves. Then we'll be wiped out. There has to be more that we can do, a better destiny that we can shape. Another place. Another way. Something!"
Moderate: Abandonment, Ableism, Gun violence, Violence, Classism, Death, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Murder, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Grief, Sexual violence, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Sexual content, Slavery, Addiction, Blood, Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Medical trauma, Child death, Cursing, and Domestic abuse
The content warnings seem extensive because many of these things are mentioned in passing as part of describing their commoness in the dystopian world the book is set in.wormgirl's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Pedophilia, Racism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, and Rape
Moderate: Racism, Trafficking, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Violence
Minor: Abandonment, Mental illness, Misogyny, Animal death, Cannibalism, and Police brutality