Reviews tagging 'Death'

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

137 reviews

erikwmj's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Classism, Suicidal thoughts, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Rape, Religious bigotry, Racism, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Hate crime, Incest, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual violence, and Slavery

Moderate: Addiction and Blood

Minor: War, Drug abuse, and Pandemic/Epidemic

sarahh87's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Violence, Death, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Emotional abuse, and Trafficking

hannahgjenson's review against another edition

challenging dark sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

It’s hard to sum up my thoughts about this novel. This novel is so important- important to both your soul and to you as a reader. I loved the tension created by all the different view points, especially when one narrator knew or understood something another didn’t. This book also inspired me to really think deeply about how I can form deeper communities in my life, how I can show up for people who have “horrible ordinary things” just like me, and if I’m someone who has any skills that would be useful to a community during an apocalypse. I need to learn how to garden or build furniture or shoot a gun or something! Preferred this novel to its predecessor, though I loved Parable of the Sower as well.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual assault, Child death, Death, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Suicide

bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

• 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

5.0

Oooooooh I liked this one even more than Parable of the Sower. I loved the non-linear narrative and the multiple contrasting points of view. I loved how Lauren Olamina's daughter's experiences and viewpoints complicated the narrative from Olamina's journals. 

This book is just as dark as the first one. Many horrifying things happen. It is a true dystopian exploration of a possible future from an author who keenly understood the many horrors at play in the United States. Some of it is so on the nose that it was hard to read. Some, especially the technology stuff, felt unlikely at times, but much more grounded than in almost any other near-future dystopian or sci-fi books I've read. Octavia E. Butler was just that good.

Also, this book has multiple central queer characters, which I never see mentioned when people are discussing it. Don't expect happy queer stories--Butler is as realistic about violent homophobia as she is about all other aspects of this world--but it is very present in ways that felt good and right as well as being harrowing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Misogyny, Suicide, War, Blood, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Religious bigotry, Torture, Sexual violence, Hate crime, Police brutality, Rape, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Grief, Forced institutionalization, Slavery, Gun violence, Lesbophobia, Sexual assault, Violence, Death, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Racism, Death of parent, Gore, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Homophobia, Pregnancy, and Classism

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Vomit, Medical content, and Drug abuse

Minor: Incest

janiecekneppe's review against another edition

challenging 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Hate crime, Kidnapping, Slavery, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Rape, Trafficking, and Torture

zluke's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

Heartbreaking but such a rich powerful story

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Content Warnings

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

lugysuperfly's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

In this second book, we find Lauren and the Acorn community a few years later after being settled in Bankole's lands. They have learned to protect themselves and developed their community with Lauren's teachings of Earthseed. They educate their own, farm the lands, connect with the other communities and expand as they go. However, life outside of their community is chaos under Jarrett's rule led by the iron fist of Christian extremism in which the persecution of other's belief system is threatened in the worst ways. Technology has advanced but mostly accessible to the powerful and the government who uses it to control the masses. At times, the journey is hard and grueling for some of the people from Acorn. The story is mostly told from Lauren's words but shared with us by her adult daughter. We get some gems from Bankole and her brother the minister. As the conclusion for the Earthseed series, this was beautifully done. Octavia E. Butler gave us a prophetic view of our present day but we know that history repeats itself and she was  giving us additional tools to change the next time it happened. Her words marked me and it makes me sad that we do not get to read the 3rd installment of this series as she had planned. The writing is powerful to give the images of this world yet simple with the purpose bringing us back to the basics of humanity. The bare bones of this book is highlighting importance of human connection and the power we have to influence one another for the good of all. Always striving to do the best we can with the tools we have to survive. Anyway, I feel like this is the most basic way to explain this book for me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Happy reading!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Torture, and Slavery

Moderate: Death, Slavery, and Torture

tafeeeeee's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

It was interesting being in Olamina's head. I didn't agree with most of what she said and believed. I liked hearing her daughter's POV and being able to see Olamina through someone else's eyes. I don't know if I like Olamina as a character. On one hand she grew up in a horribly dangerous place and had to go through so much hardship and fear. On the other hand she was a charismatic woman capable of seducing people to follow her teachings. Whether you think Earth Seed is a cult or not, her methods were very cult-like. I'm left feeling unsatisfied by the ending, but dystopias usually don't end with rainbows and sunshine for all.

I didn't like the new narrator for Olamina. She stressed every other word so her sentences were constantly flowing up and down. It was distracting and made it hard to focus sometimes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Slavery, Death, Violence, Blood, Gore, Physical abuse, Confinement, Rape, and Trafficking

bass_clarinet's review

challenging dark hopeful informative inspiring sad fast-paced

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

4.0

Beautiful and spiritual. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Genocide, Kidnapping, Death, Police brutality, Violence, Torture, Slavery, and Trafficking

Moderate: Misogyny, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Sexism, Gun violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Cursing, War, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Abandonment, Classism, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Confinement, Pregnancy, Death, and Sexual violence

woweewhoa's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Rape, Violence, Gun violence, and Death

Moderate: Suicide and Religious bigotry

Minor: War