Parable of the Sower

This was such an incredibly powerful book. Butler presents us with a slow sort of apocalypse - there is no singular moment that changes the world, but rather just a gradual descent where everything falls apart. Reading this at the tail end of 2022, it feels disturbingly prescient - the issues of global warming, police brutality, a housing crisis, and food insecurity were all issues that existed in 1993, but they weren't quite as front-of-mind as they are today.

Of course, the powers of prediction isn't the only way to value science fiction, and that's not all that Butler offers here. What makes this novel such an important read is that it lights a candle in the darkness - it shows us, through Lauren and her burgeoning faith, that we will survive all this. That we can have hope and rebuild. That's what makes this such a special read.

As someone who’s read this twice and even taught it in 9th Grade, it leaves something to be desired. Things that are a little too few and far between: stretches of world-building to make the apocalypse more loved in and undergird; the social critiques; motif bricklaying (e.g. the astronaut stuff); romance plots that aren’t a little skeezy; and explanation for what caused the apocalypse (not always necessary, but could be helpful here).

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!

Intense and brutal and hits way too close to home for comfort, which is, in part, the point. The near-future dystopia feels VERY near these days, and while technically this is speculative fiction, it's barely speculative and barely fiction. There's a little something extra to it beginning in 2024, the current year, but it was written in 1993 and obviously RL 2024 isn't where book 2024 is. But fast-forward 20 or 30 years, and maybe?

This is a tough read, and I don't know if I can say I "enjoyed" it, but it's certainly well-executed, believable, and upsetting. I've read a bunch of reviews trying to see not only what others thought but also whether I had missed key takeaways -- I don't think I did -- and I am struck by the things a lot of the negative reviews are complaining about. Some of then don't like "Earthseed," which is protagonist Lauren's invented religion based around change. I saw one person complaining that it was unbelievable because the police -- and the book starts in LA, so it would be the LAPD! -- are depicted as unhelpful and corrupt. A couple people didn't like the prose; people are entitled to their opinions, but I thought it was perfectly fine.

An early takeaway for me was preparing for impending disaster instead of pretending it won't happen, but Butler wrote this to envision the near-future based on the continuation of contemporary trends. So I think a better takeaway more accurate to her perspective is to effect change now to avoid this bleak future. I wish I were more optimistic about that.

“The world goes crazy every three or four decades. The trick is to survive until it goes sane again.”

This is a very thoughtful analysis of the ways humans can try to cope in a world seemingly irrevocably destroyed by themselves, packaged in an engaging dystopian story.

I loved most of it, even though the style of writing (diary entries) is not my favorite.

It was a very dark read, especially in recent times, so I definitely need to read something fun now to cleanse the palette.

This is a dark book. I mean, this is dystopian. The Hunger Games is a happy place in comparison. That being said, there is a lot to learn from this book about human nature. The growing divide between rich and poor, slavery, racism... If there is a bias, Butler shows it's ugliness in full. There isn't graphic violence or sex, but it should be noted that of violence, sex, or mention of rape is a trigger, this book is not for you.

I wanted to find a brighter light in this book and I didn't get it. I wanted more hope to be realized. Perhaps during this time of pandemic, the darkness is harder to take. I struggled with the rating. The writing drew me in and kept me coming back. It made new think. Two things I want in a book. I am curious if things get brighter in the next book. Since I liked this one, I plan to read the next and find out.

Another “it gets better” book. I had abandoned this some months ago, at about ten percent, because of violence I found uncomfortable and religious overtones I found tedious. A friend convinced me to give it another go, and I'm mostly glad I did: it remained a disturbing read, but also developed thoughtful themes of trust, compassion, attachment (in Buddhist and other senses), and the fragility of civilization. I don't understand the economics of her world nor some of the character motivations, which diminished my enjoyment somewhat. I haven't decided yet whether to continue with the trilogy.

There is dystopian and then there Dystopian. This got so grim around the 60% mark that I almost pulled the eject cord. Fortunately it “lightened” after that, although more in the sense of “thank you for stopping the beatings” rather than “redemption has arrived”. In then end there is hope, but it is the barest sliver, resting on the shakiest of foundations.

Yes, this book is well-written but it takes unrelenting hardship to the extreme. If you're someone who checks trigger warnings before reading a book, you will probably want to skip this.

In a future America that has been overcome by climate change and greed, we follow a band of people just trying to survive. Our main character, Lauren, starts the book as a teen. As a way to cope with the world around her, she starts a journal, where she writes down information about her days, as well as her ideas for a new religion. This world is desolate. Every man is for themselves. There is legalized slavery, corruption, and violence happening all around. Can Lauren and her family survive in this world? Can her religion help the people around her?

This book was harrowing. It felt all too real. This was written in 1993, and the book starts in 2025. The dystopian setting created a brutal, disgusting world almost not worth living in. I think the strongest point of this book for me was Lauren's character growth. She is a teen in this book, but as a narrator seems so much older and mature due to her life experiences. However, she shows some naivete at certain points in the book that really hammer home to the reader that while she is mature for her age, she is still just a girl. Butler does a deep dive into what the human psyche would be like in a world like this. She also shows how thin the veil is between our current world and this world. We could be a few missteps away from living in a world like this, and it made this book very hard to read at times.

Please read the CW carefully. This book is graphic and brutal. I would recommend this to people, but please check those.

CW: animal killing, cannibalism, drug use, gang violence, incest, murder, mutilation, pedophilia, racism, rape, sexism, torture, violence

I read Kindred before and I am glad that the second book I read by her was also really good. Instead of slavery this one tackles consequences of climate change, drugs, politics. It's a survival book, the author's mother was a green thumb, the author researched religions, guns to write it.

It feels so real and there's barely anything magical in it, the “magic” here would be diseases anyway.

The world is brutal. The religion which is supposed to bring relief to people is realistic and practical, it's more like community guidelines.

Loved it, there's nothing to complain about.

Lauren Olamina is keeping a journal of her life amid the nightmare that she and all the people of futuristic California are living. Lauren is a teen and she lives with her family in a protected enclave community in a time where respect for human life is virtually gone. This California of the future is one of the most horrific worlds I've ever seen depicted in books. Mauraders kill for water, clothes, food. Eventually, even Lauren's community is attacked and destroyed and she is forced to go on the move with two friends. Lauren has gradually created a philosophy about God that she calls Earthseed, and she hopes to create a new Earthseed community in a safe place and, in time, in outer space.

The world Butler depicts in Parable of the Sower is a brutal unrelenting world of severe water shortages, beatings, stealing, slavery, prostitution, rape, killings, even cannibalism. Lauren is a teen who has grown up in that world and has had to adapt to it in order to survive. I had a very hard time reading this book, especially in the scenes of violence, but in the end, I liked it so much that I wanted to read on to its sequel.

#BlackHistoryMonth

I've been in a big reading slump since like mid-November 2020. I've started a lot of books, finished few, and the ones that I have finished have taken me a long time. This was not one of those books. I plowed right through this; I finished the second-half basically in one session.

The story combines some of my favorite elements. It's told from the perspective of an 18-year old girl, Lauren, a girl who grew up in a very different world from her parents and the community around her. That old world is gone, but everyone from her perspective is slow to accept that change except her. The world Lauren knows is an all too possible near-future Earth in the midst of societal collapse, the governments of the 50 states and nations of the world exist — at least nominally — but their reach has drastically diminished. There are police officers and firefighters but neither will come for the majority of incidents unless you can pay for service and even then they might just take your money. If you find yourself in debt and unable to pay, your debtors can lock you into slavery. This post-collapse world becomes a lens for our narrator to develop a new religion she calls Earthseed. Her new faith doesn't just wax and wane woefully about the world that once was, nor does it entirely embrace the new world they're surrounded by. Instead, Earthseed's fundamental idea is that God is change, and that people are agents of that change. The world-building of the societal collapse and this new religion are what kept drawing me back for more.

My biggest issue with the book is the hyper-empathy syndrome that Lauren has. It felt like an idea from another draft, or that Butler had recently read something about synesthesia and thought that could be a compelling hook for a character and it simply didn't get filtered out as the story developed. In a world that seems all too real, the hyper-empathy felt like a curse of magic than reality.

This started off promising then slogged A LOT in the middle then actually got good and finally ended with a whimper. I found the protagonist really annoying which is ironic considering that's exactly what the person who wrote the foreword said. And her relationship with a 57 year old man as an 18 year old girl that everyone in their group is just totally fine with? Bizarre and unsettling, even in an apocalypse. Also the fact that the group just elected her their de facto leader when Zahra was right there? And were totally willing to go along with her crazy ass Earthseed? Made no sense to me and doesn't seem how actual humans would react at all in that situation.

Overall very disappointed and will not be returning to Butler's works in the near future. 

What a prescient novel to read in 2023! Perhaps it should be classified as horror, because when I look at the state of the world it isn't hard to imagine it devolving to this scenario.

The main character, Lauren, is in somewhat of a Cassandra scenario where she is telling people what will likely happen, but nobody will listen and will in fact actively deny and repress what she is saying. She is the lone voice of wisdom, or at least the voice of practicality without denial.

The novel explores hope, loss, and trust. How well do you really know people you have known all of your life when the world you know crumbles? How do you know you can trust people you have just met? How can you maintain your moral code when the world around you does not follow that same code, and you are pressed in to acts that you would not normally do?

The author makes a bold choice in exploring the beginning of a religious movement while simultaneously setting its goals far beyond just establishing morality. Earthseed is the metaphor for the titular Sower, and where in Maslow's hierarchy is space exploration when you need to determine where you are going to get your next meal or drink of water?

I look forward to reading the second book, and I'm sad that the third book in the trilogy wasn't finished before the author's death. (Doing a little research I see the author intended for there to be several more novels in the series, too.)

I think that this book just wasn't for me. I've never really been a huge fan of dystopia, or YA dystopia for that matter, and Parable of the Sower didn't do much to make it stand out from the others. I did like the ideas of Earthseed and the effects of religion that were discussed, but that's pretty much the majority of what the book had going for it. It started fairly slow, the plot wasn't too interesting, and the romance was creepy.

Short review: Butler is such a distinctive voice. It is too bad that she passed away so young and that this series was not rounded out. There was a planned third book, but it never made it past the notes stage.

I have read a lot of modern dystopian novels that tend toward YA. It is interesting to go back and read older dystopian novels. This does not have the humor of Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins. But it does have the social commentary, albeit more directly about race, gender and power structures. It is not quite as violent and gruesome as Cormac McCarthy's The Road (published a decade after Sower). But it is stark and plenty gruesome on its own.

The Parable of the Sower is still dystopian, but it trying to show how humanity rises up out of dystopian setting, not how the innate sinfulness of humanity descends into dystopia without the structure of society.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/parable-sower-octavia-butler/

Hands down the best dystopia I've encountered in any medium. Although I craved much more in the plot and the depth of characters and character relationships, my stomach felt wretched while reading page after page - this world felt incredibly real in all its cruelty and brutality. Butler's story-telling enraptured me from the start, in a way that I never believed a book written journal-entry format could. About half way through I did feel like I was reading a list of “things I did today,” and lost the feeling of awe in the story telling. A lot of the second half of the book fell flat for me, including the ending. If you want to read an excellent dystopia, this is a must read.

I love dystopian novels but this one hits hard. There are so many parallels for today. Lauren as a character was relatable for me. She is logical and I loved that about her. However, I didn't love the religious aspect of it. Her earthseed verses were fascinating but not something that intrigued me about the story. Overall a fantastic story!