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edonnel 's review for:
Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler
challenging
dark
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Parable of the Sower has sat on my TBR list for a while and I wasn’t sure I wanted it to be my first Octavia Butler book. But somehow in this book of graphic descriptions of what feels like a apocalyptic and guaranteed future, Butler wove a soul-bending story full of hope. Hope for when reality hurts more than you could ever imagine. Hope for 2024, the year I am reading this and the year the book begins.
I especially appreciate the female MC whose empathy is her disability, because in a world where global disaster is the every day news, feeling others pain is can be crippling. In the last week while reading this, two CAT 5 hurricanes have drown the eastern seaboard, earthquakes ricochet along the west coast, and genocides funded by my country have devastated entire nations. What can one person do but despair?
But despite it all, hope is found, in community, in children, and in seeds. And all I can do is keep planting seeds, keep teaching children, and keep hoping.
I especially appreciate the female MC whose empathy is her disability, because in a world where global disaster is the every day news, feeling others pain is can be crippling. In the last week while reading this, two CAT 5 hurricanes have drown the eastern seaboard, earthquakes ricochet along the west coast, and genocides funded by my country have devastated entire nations. What can one person do but despair?
But despite it all, hope is found, in community, in children, and in seeds. And all I can do is keep planting seeds, keep teaching children, and keep hoping.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Violence
Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury
This book is science fiction apocalypse. It describes everything violent you can expect from an apocalyptic future.