A review by lugysuperfly
Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

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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