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angievansprang's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Wow this was incredible. I know this has been said many times, but not only was Butler vastly ahead of her times, she also essentially predicted many parts of the future (our current reality) back in the late 90s/early 2000s. I am so impressed at her introspection and ability to formulate a novel religion that is so community-centered. It is very true that is what the world, especially here in the US, need right now. I adored our main character Lauren, who is wise far beyond her age and very believable. While this book covered deeply brutal topics, there is an air of hope by the end that I appreciated. It highlights that no matter how bad things get, we will prevail if we rely on one another. Community is Everything & God is Change.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Blood
Minor: Child abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Cannibalism, Pregnancy, and Classism
hazelgirl21's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Blood
Moderate: Death of parent and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Cannibalism, and Fire/Fire injury
sophierrr's review against another edition
4.5
It took me entirely too long to finish this book but I think what I took and valued most from it is how valuable community is especially in hard times. How even if there is death and destruction and everything in your soul is telling you not to have any hope and to throw up ur hands and give up, how you should hope anyway.
tmowery's review against another edition
4.0
I think this book is definitely worth 5 stars but I needed to take it in small bits & it required aggressive counter-programming because it hit too close to home & gave me wild dreams. Going out & buying the second book immediately.
drchanequa's review against another edition
5.0
Each time I read an Octavia Butler book, I’m awestruck by how prescient her writing is. It often feels more like reading a missive from the future warning us about the dire consequences of our contemporary lifestyle. The first book in the Parable series weaves together issues of race, class, environmentalism, social decay, and religion together in a way that is thought-provoking without being preachy (even though the main character literally preaches at times). But most importantly, it tells a compelling and entertaining story. I’m looking forward to the second book to see how this story continues.
squid_vicious's review against another edition
5.0
“When unattended environmental and economic crises lead to social chaos, not even gated communities are safe.”
I fell in love very hard with Octavia Butler’s work when I read “Kindred” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1881765857), and even more so when I read “Bloodchild” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2222171365). I honestly can’t believe it took me this long to get to another one of her books! Especially as “Parable of the Sower” is a rather prescient kind of post-apocalyptic novel, the kind that can be shelved next to “The Handmaid’s Tale”…
The world Lauren lives in hasn’t been laid to waste by war, zombies, or aliens or any of your usual cataclysms. It simply just sort of… collapsed on itself because people were in denial about the environment decaying, about the economy falling apart and about the social consequences of those slowly encroaching events. Lauren is a young girl who suffers from hyperempathy syndrome, which means she feels the pain and pleasure of those around her to the point where it can be quite debilitating. She lives in a somewhat stable walled neighborhood just outside of L.A. with her father, stepmother and siblings, where they get by on the parents’ meager salaries and whatever their little community can scrounge together. But no one is ever completely safe from thieves and arsonist… Lauren is, unfortunately, the only one lucid enough to see the writing on the wall, so when her community is attacked and destroyed, she is prepared: she has a pack with things she might need on the road, and when she can’t find any of her family members, she decides to head north, where she hopes to find a job and maybe start a community around a quasi-religious belief system she has been working on.
Lauren might seem too smart and thoughtful to be 18, but I have known a few hyper-inquisitive people of that age who would have reached similar conclusions had they been in her place. Mostly I felt for her isolation, both the one created by her outlook of her and her family’s situation, but also the alienation that she must have experienced with her hyperempathy. In some circumstances, her syndrome is a gift, and as is eventually pointed out, if more people felt others’ suffering, the world might be a better place; but in survival mode, it’s a big hurdle that makes a lot of situations very complicated and risky.
Butler dances on a fine line between complete and total bleakness and shining optimism: I have no idea how one pulls this off, but despite the truly dark stuff to be found within the pages of this book, “Parable of the Sower” is actually incredibly hopeful. While her world-building in horrifyingly plausible (the scarceness of resources, privatized law enforcement, complete lack of trust in elected officials, the heightened tension between social and racial groups, the gun violence, the eerie political slogans about making things “great again”…), her characters show an inspiring strength of spirit. While there is plenty of danger on the road they choose to take, there is also a capacity for collaboration that they were not always able to find within their own communities. I remember feeling similarly after finishing “Kindred”: crushed, but feeling like there is a way to be better people, and that Butler used her work to point that way as much as she could.
I was a bit apprehensive that the religious undertones of the story would turn me off, because they usually do. But Ms. Butler is too clever to turn her story into a preachy, didactic mess. Lauren’s ideology is based on her direct experience and the concept of Change, and she wants to establish a community that acts upon the principles of her belief system: bring together people who support each other, collaborate and work through the ever-changing reality they live to reach Earthseed’s ultimate goal: the stars. Part of me can’t help but find it a bit silly and simplistic, but there is a also a logic to Lauren’s discourse, and in her world, she is certainly the one with the clearest ideas and most reasonable solutions.
It can be a bit of an unnerving book to read, because a lot of things in here don’t feel all that far-fetched. Over many conversations with friends, it has really struck me that we have an easier time imagining social collapse than imagining a societal change radical enough to help us correct the really alarming course we are heading on, as a planet and as a society. Butler’s vision of the 2020s seems to reinforce that mental trend, as her characters are not living so much as surviving in their world, and it can be harrowing to read when you are afraid that this is truly in our near future.
My edition includes a foreword by the brilliant N.K. Jemisin, who explains much better than I could why this book, while not the crazy sci-fi one might be used to with Butler, is probably her most relevant work at this precise moment. This book is not to be missed, for fans of Butler’s other books and for anyone who hasn’t read this wonderful woman’s work before. I’m looking forward to the sequel, “Parable of the Talents”.
I fell in love very hard with Octavia Butler’s work when I read “Kindred” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1881765857), and even more so when I read “Bloodchild” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2222171365). I honestly can’t believe it took me this long to get to another one of her books! Especially as “Parable of the Sower” is a rather prescient kind of post-apocalyptic novel, the kind that can be shelved next to “The Handmaid’s Tale”…
The world Lauren lives in hasn’t been laid to waste by war, zombies, or aliens or any of your usual cataclysms. It simply just sort of… collapsed on itself because people were in denial about the environment decaying, about the economy falling apart and about the social consequences of those slowly encroaching events. Lauren is a young girl who suffers from hyperempathy syndrome, which means she feels the pain and pleasure of those around her to the point where it can be quite debilitating. She lives in a somewhat stable walled neighborhood just outside of L.A. with her father, stepmother and siblings, where they get by on the parents’ meager salaries and whatever their little community can scrounge together. But no one is ever completely safe from thieves and arsonist… Lauren is, unfortunately, the only one lucid enough to see the writing on the wall, so when her community is attacked and destroyed, she is prepared: she has a pack with things she might need on the road, and when she can’t find any of her family members, she decides to head north, where she hopes to find a job and maybe start a community around a quasi-religious belief system she has been working on.
Lauren might seem too smart and thoughtful to be 18, but I have known a few hyper-inquisitive people of that age who would have reached similar conclusions had they been in her place. Mostly I felt for her isolation, both the one created by her outlook of her and her family’s situation, but also the alienation that she must have experienced with her hyperempathy. In some circumstances, her syndrome is a gift, and as is eventually pointed out, if more people felt others’ suffering, the world might be a better place; but in survival mode, it’s a big hurdle that makes a lot of situations very complicated and risky.
Butler dances on a fine line between complete and total bleakness and shining optimism: I have no idea how one pulls this off, but despite the truly dark stuff to be found within the pages of this book, “Parable of the Sower” is actually incredibly hopeful. While her world-building in horrifyingly plausible (the scarceness of resources, privatized law enforcement, complete lack of trust in elected officials, the heightened tension between social and racial groups, the gun violence, the eerie political slogans about making things “great again”…), her characters show an inspiring strength of spirit. While there is plenty of danger on the road they choose to take, there is also a capacity for collaboration that they were not always able to find within their own communities. I remember feeling similarly after finishing “Kindred”: crushed, but feeling like there is a way to be better people, and that Butler used her work to point that way as much as she could.
I was a bit apprehensive that the religious undertones of the story would turn me off, because they usually do. But Ms. Butler is too clever to turn her story into a preachy, didactic mess. Lauren’s ideology is based on her direct experience and the concept of Change, and she wants to establish a community that acts upon the principles of her belief system: bring together people who support each other, collaborate and work through the ever-changing reality they live to reach Earthseed’s ultimate goal: the stars. Part of me can’t help but find it a bit silly and simplistic, but there is a also a logic to Lauren’s discourse, and in her world, she is certainly the one with the clearest ideas and most reasonable solutions.
It can be a bit of an unnerving book to read, because a lot of things in here don’t feel all that far-fetched. Over many conversations with friends, it has really struck me that we have an easier time imagining social collapse than imagining a societal change radical enough to help us correct the really alarming course we are heading on, as a planet and as a society. Butler’s vision of the 2020s seems to reinforce that mental trend, as her characters are not living so much as surviving in their world, and it can be harrowing to read when you are afraid that this is truly in our near future.
My edition includes a foreword by the brilliant N.K. Jemisin, who explains much better than I could why this book, while not the crazy sci-fi one might be used to with Butler, is probably her most relevant work at this precise moment. This book is not to be missed, for fans of Butler’s other books and for anyone who hasn’t read this wonderful woman’s work before. I’m looking forward to the sequel, “Parable of the Talents”.
rossetto_e_guai's review against another edition
4.0
Romanzo apocalittico che ha qualcosa de “La strada”. Stessi temi, stesso ambiente ma è molto meno duro nonostante le cose orribili raccontate siano esattamente le medesime. Lo definirei la versione speranzosa de La Strada, non posso dare 5 stelle perché preferisco la versione emotivamente devastante
ashleyjo5's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
ashleyehooker's review against another edition
3.0
I liked the story part of this book, the one at it was written as journal entries but the Earthseed portions didn’t seem to add much to either the narrative or my enjoyment of it.