Kindred

// the speculative fiction authors challenge
// octavia butler

Octavia Butler is on my must-read challenge list. Her back catalogue is massive. Where do you even begin?

Kindred, apparently.

I finished last week but didn't have the words to write a review. I still struggle.

Kindred is about Dana, a young, black woman of the 1970s who suddenly finds herself being time-traveled to antebellum Maryland (ca 1815).

Butler is a science fiction writer, but Kindred is on the low end of the sci-fi scale, if at all (the time-traveling bit just is, no explanation). I am rather ignorant about the history of the USA (I am from a small European country), but from my perspective, this book felt like a very insightful and trustworthy depiction of a historical time.

Butler's writing flows easily. English is not my native language, but I never felt I read a book from 1979 (before I was born).

I stayed up late on several occasions to finish another chapter (and hated myself a bit because this book really hurts and it's never fun going to bed with a broken heart).

The verdict?
This is certainly not my last Butler novel.