Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

32 reviews

eamador's review against another edition

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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


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stevia333k's review against another edition

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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.

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stephanieridiculous's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I have so many thoughts on this. 

While I did not care for the new format of this book, I think it's better than Parable of the Sower. Or maybe more accurately, it's more relevant to America in 2022, and for my particular context, is more relevant to what American Christianity is becoming (has been for a long time.)

Some bullet point lists:

Things I didn't care for:
-As mentioned, I didn't really enjoy the new format. Having commentary on the journal entries didn't really work for me, even if I was very interested in the information they provided. I'm a stickler for consistent POV's, so in particular I didn't care for adding new ones in the 2nd book.
-I feel like the editing was a little less tight on this one. There were a couple of small inconsistencies that I feel like should have been caught (mostly having to do with how Sharing worked)
-I'm not sure if the characters just didn't pull me, or if the amount of violence in general made it hard to feel any particular loss, but lots of bad things happen to important characters and I didn't really feel the weight of it. I cry while reading books all. the. time. and I didn't shed a single tear, despite from significant blows. I am unsure if that's a reflection of me or the writing. 

Things I did care for/or got to me:
-There is still the pure shock factor that I didn't much care for in book one, but it's used much more effectively here. While I felt Parable was making a point, it felt like a vague general one, where Talents is making a very specific, and very relevant, point about America, the government, zealous religion, and particularly violent Christianity. Butler gut punches you with the reality of violence in a way that really drives home how close we are to it in the real world.
-The world felt more balanced here than it did in Parable; more tangible and believable. 
-As a Christian in America in 2022; the Crusader's are a harrowing potential - that I 100% believe could actually happen/is already happening to some extent. Butler's writing of a Christian fanatic running for president is horrifying in it's accuracy & I am much more haunted now by the phrase "Make America great again." In particular, I think the way the Crusaders are depicted is so accurate it hurts. The hypocrisy, the blind faith, the stupidity - just open Twitter and you'll see the same thing in real time. It's so so so sad to see it lived out in real life, and it's disheartening. Maddening.
-I really did like the ending. It felt resolved, but not clean. It's messy and disappointing, but also hopeful. I was a little worried about how the book could resolve satisfyingly given the scope of Earthseed, but I think it addressed things well. 

I think the resurgence of these books is 100% spot on, and with some caveats for caring for your mental health, I'd definitely encourage my (white) Christian friends to try and read these two books, but especially Talents. 

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apollos_books's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? Yes

5.0

god damn. i have no other words. such a powerful series. and, unfortunately, as relevant as ever.

this book as all the content warnings though. like literally. read with care and caution

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bookcaptivated's review against another edition

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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


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ellenwilberg's review against another edition

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dark sad

5.0


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jojo_'s review against another edition

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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


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ruthlessreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

This is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. It was scary how accurate Butler’s interpretation of the future is and makes me worry for what comes next in this country. It’s intense & I highly recommend looking for trigger warnings before reading because some of the events that take place are extremely traumatic. If you want a sci-fi that will make you think deeply about the state of the world, you should read this book. But start with Parable of the Sower!

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haileybones's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

4.75


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astridrv's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense 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
I almost gave up halfway through because of how horrific and depressing it got - much more so than the first book, which is really saying something. But I loved the complexity of that too, where I am used to saga's going "upwards", Butler made the brave choice of having someone who's arc is to build see everything destroyed and go through worse than ever before. I'm not sold on the second perspective we get in the book, and I would have loved the last chapters to last way longer (there is a slight pacing problem between micro and macro story there) but otherwise this is definitely the most remarkable work of fiction I read this year. I will never forget Earthseed, and the claustrophobic,terrifying, hopeful, strong, heart wrenching, generous, crushing journey it was to share this story.

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