Parable of the Sower

This is a book that tends to come up if you mention that you liked Margaret Atwood's Oryx & Crake, and it was also an excuse to finally finally take Octavia Butler off the list of authors I'd never read before! This one felt even more eerily prescient than Atwood, set in 2024 (the book was published in 1993) in a United States suffering from civilization breakdown in the wake of climate disasters. Lauren Olamina is a teenager in what was once a middle-class LA suburb but has become both less actually wealthy and much more relatively so. Her neighborhood is walled off from the outside world to protect the little (food, some money earned by those who still can find work, guns) that they still have. Lauren's mother used drugs during pregnancy, leaving her with hyperempathy, a condition in which she literally feels the pain that others experience. Both smart and canny, she understands that the little comparative oasis she's been raised in can't last long, and she starts preparing to have to survive in the outside world as well as developing her own religious philosophy based on an acceptance and even embrace of change, which she calls Earthseed. The crisis she's anticipated does in fact arrive, and she finds herself one of many people on the road hoping for something better while they try to evade theft, rape, and murder. I found Lauren a refreshing kind of heroine. Usually a teenage girl in a story like this one would be plucky and sassy, hiding an inner core of insecurity. Lauren is serious, smart, and resourceful. She's confident in her beliefs. And despite being a preacher's daughter, she's no goody two-shoes. The other characters are also developed in ways that make them feel like people rather than stock characters. Butler's prose is engaging, and the narrative journey she crafts for Lauren kept me turning the pages to see where it would go next. My major complaint here would be that it feels more like a “first in a series” than a standalone novel, with lots of set-up and character introductions (indeed there is a sequel, and Butler had originally intended there to be several entries). I am excited to read the sequel and more of Butler's other work as well!