Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

67 reviews

eamador's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring slow-paced

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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Hate crime, Incest, Classism, Murder, Child abuse, Child death, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Misogyny, and Pedophilia

stevia333k's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

So I'm white, and I read this series because anti racist black tiktokers recommended this book series over the handmaid's tale. I took them up on their recommendations because I often cited THG for about a decade for similar purposes & yeah this series has a lot of overlap. So hence I read this 2nd book. I'm thankful for this series because for a while I was thinking of using religion preaching with uncommon canons as praxis, and this series has discouraged me from that in addition to hearing about the Jim Jones people's church, etc.

I came into this book wondering how to deal with a civil war situation & I came out wanting to get a good cry in about the social constructs of family. (Looking back I actually had a similar reaction with THG #1)  I came to this book to cry, yet that topic shift startled me.  While the plot does rely on certain technologies that don't exactly map onto our world it still has helpful info & strategies. For example the laying low & collecting info etc was inspiring & helpful in affirming lessons I had gotten.

I've also learned the teacher praxis was emphasized again. While I often hear this in reference to the GPCR & MLM (including Peru) it seems that Maoism's arena can be more generally described as "civil warfare" & political terror against people's war.

As a white disabled queer muslima feminist, this shit hits hard, especially considering that the 10 generations of enslaved people who were mentioned had muslims when they were kidnapped. Like holy shit this book touched on a mood. I read about half this book on a Friday, but it took nearly 2 weeks to read the first half. I've been busy but still.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Vomit, War, Xenophobia, Abandonment, Car accident, Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Deportation, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gun violence, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Lesbophobia, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Murder, Outing, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Trafficking

Moderate: Antisemitism, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Addiction, Alcohol, and Alcoholism

siri_paulson's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Torture, Slavery, Physical abuse, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Confinement

Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Rape, Murder, Hate crime, Death, and Child abuse

Minor: Pregnancy and Pedophilia

rlgreen91's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish. Granted, like most books by Octavia E. Butler, reading this would leave me with a slight feeling of existential dread, but I enjoyed every minute of it, oddly enough.

It's hard to review this book - it feels like the only way to truly do it justice would be a review that's more of an early draft of an academic research paper. Butler's novels tend to be like that, in my experience, but this is the book that seems to exemplify this phenomenon the most.

If I had to pick one aspect of the book to reflect on, it would be the many mistakes that Lauren made due to her youth. You start to see this a bit in Parable of the Sower, but the fact that Lauren's most formative experiences as a child and young adult occurred during such a chaotic time has an impact on the decisions she makes as things gets "better." On the one hand, she does display a maturity beyond what you might expect from a woman her age, simply because of how harsh her world was, and how it forced all children to grow up quickly if they wanted to survive. At the same time, we see that as the world slides back from the extremely harsh conditions to a more "normal" mode of society, Lauren is often ignorant of how people, organizations, and institutions will react and how social and cultural norms will change in response. So throughout the novel, we see Lauren make mistakes because she's unaware of how people and society will operate during "normal" times, beyond the mistakes you typically see young adults make as they start to make their way in the world. In some ways, Lauren is able to recover from those mistakes, but regardless, they do have far-reaching, unpredictable consequences in some cases. As readers, this should prompt us to question our common view of how leaders being "forged in the fire" during a crisis is always seen as a positive view of their work.

Again, there is a lot of thought-provoking content in this novel. A review can't do it justice - honestly, multiple dissertations probably couldn't do it justice. What a wonderful gift Butler has left us with. 5 stars. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Rape, Religious bigotry, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Homophobia, Pregnancy, and Slavery

bookcaptivated's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Lesbophobia, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Death, Child death, Gore, Child abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Rape, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexism, and Trafficking

Moderate: Suicide, Stalking, Outing, Pedophilia, Gaslighting, and Homophobia

Minor: Alcohol and Vomit

pipn_t's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This book was really good, though some of it was rather dark (more so than Parable of the Sower) and I did skim some stuff as it’s a little outside of what I usually like to read, but this is no fault of the book.  It was a very interesting story and I was engaged in it right to the end.  

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Torture, Death, Murder, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, and Religious bigotry

doomluz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Somehow this one was even more prescient for 2020 than the previous book. I like that she included Lauren’s daughter’s pov. The segments of the Earthseed book feel even more like part of a full religion/philosophy in this book. Strong characters. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Violence, Child abuse, Outing, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Suicide, Sexism, Physical abuse, Grief, Lesbophobia, Murder, Torture, Rape, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, and Slavery

jojo_'s review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Murder, Violence, Abandonment, Child abuse, Lesbophobia, Religious bigotry, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Torture, Homophobia, Racism, Slavery, Fire/Fire injury, Xenophobia, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Classism, Grief, Ableism, Death of parent, Rape, Addiction, Blood, Drug abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Kidnapping, Trafficking, Infidelity, and Pedophilia

Minor: Gun violence, Pregnancy, Police brutality, and Toxic relationship

chloebethx_'s review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Had to take some points off because it was just too sad in some parts, but once again a spell-binding tale from Butler.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Physical abuse, Rape, Classism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Colonisation, and Death of parent

krys_kilz'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? Yes

5.0

This book is an in depth exploration of fascism - both how it gains momentum and it's rooted histories in the so called "united states." Butler really dives into what people are willing to accept and look away from in order to preserve the illusion of stability, safety, and control. There are a lot of heavy themes and explicit violence, so folks should approach with intention, but I think it is essential reading.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Kidnapping, Rape, Slavery, and Torture

Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, and Sexual violence