Kindred

I read the graphic novel- which I really liked - but this!!! THIS blew me away when I already knew the story and how much I liked it...I like the book so much more!

The preparedness, the survival, the stockholm syndrome with layers of nuance that stack so nicely that you will notice something new every time. A fantastic read and you will become absolutely compelled to read on!

Incredible. No notes.

Being transported to the past was fascinating, and the implications of her having to make sure her ancestor survived, time passing by slower in the past than in the future, Kevin being stuck in the past for 5 years without Dana - all so thought provoking. Very difficult to read at points due to subject matter where I just had to take a break from reading. The writing style made it easy to actually read though. This is my second book from Butler and certainly not my last

Very gripping yet very enraging.

I understand the point of the book was how easy it was to accept the way things are, even if those things are horrible. And the complexities of caring for people who perpetuating those horrible things.

But

Dana is way too accepting of a rapist. She even encourages her ancestor into accepting being raped, and is happy when they have a child together. Would I really want my ancestor to be raped just so I could exist?! I'm not sure my family tree or existence is worth someone else's pain and suffering. Of course if it hadn't been Rufus, it could have easily been someone else. Who knows what would have happened to Alice if Rufus wasn't around. But Dana's attitude still feels icky.And then Dana kills Rufus when he tries to rape her. That seems very hypocritical


This is also a book about a concept. I would have preferred it be a book about characters. We didn't see the deeply intense internal personal conflict that could have easily arisen from a story like this.

A re-read of my favorite book.

Wow.

The beginning was really hard. I wanted to puke.
It didn't get much better in that - “I'll skin you alive!” and he meant it. He would have done it... how can people be confident about having right to have and use that kind of power over other people? It's still happening, all over the planet.
Anyway, it felt better, because of Dana.
Oh... I don't have words to tell how I feel about this. Except that I found it really weird that it was written some 50 years ago. It felt so modern. It could have been written now.

This book had a really strong premise and plot, but the characters felt two-dimensional and there was no real resolution or settling, it just felt cut off.

Wow what a masterpiece!

CAWPILE SCORE
C-10
A-9
W-9
P-8
I-6
L-9
E-7
TOTAL-8.29/10

Very intense book. lots of powerful moments. This is definitely a character story.

CAWPILECharactersThis story is all about the characters and the relationships they have. Mainly about Dana and Rufus. Octavia Butler writes an amazing cast of characters.AtmosphereWhile reading this, i could truly feel like I was there with the characters. and while the Present never felt as fleshed out as the past, thats not the story being toldWritingAmazing Prose, short and Sweet. Although I was deceived by seeing it was only 6 chapters and expecting it to be shorter. but thats on me.PlotLess of a plot story that even while its there the characters are more central to the story.IntrigueThe interest of what will happen to Dana and Rufus kept me heavily invested in finishingLogicThe characters all behaved like characters from this time period would in the situation they found themselves in.EnjoymentWhile I liked reading this book, its tough to say I enjoyed it. and I probably won't be rereading it anytime soon
I will be talking about it on Libromancy 03/20/2022 https://libromancy.podbean.com/

Creative, thought-provoking, stark, and a great example of why sci-fi/fantasy/“speculative fiction” needs more diverse voices. Essentially an extended look at the thought, “if you'd be happy to go back in American history and live there, you're probably a white man.” Did feel like it had more premise than plot, although I know the disjointed nature of it was intentional. Butler is great, I'm excited to read more

Couldn't truly appreciate Dana's experiences. Also not what I'd call science fiction.

I have very little to say about Kindred: it is a conceptually amazing work that I rushed to borrow from the library as soon as I learned of its premise. However, the style of its prose and dialogue was just not doing it for me.

I was expecting this to be painful. I expected to feel rage, helplessness, fear, disgust.

I was not expecting serenity. That's an incongruous word for a book on this topic — I'm uncomfortable writing and even thinking it — but that's what fits. Dana, the protagonist, demonstrates an astonishing inner strength, a quiet fire manifesting as wisdom, patience, remarkable tolerance. The result is a nuanced and complex book: kindness, resilience, fortitude; also monstrous cruelty, with clear villains who — much like today's Republicans — are simply weak worthless subhumans, products of a deep-rooted and enormously broken system, incapable of breaking out of it and too stupid to understand a bigger, broader, better world. Butler, unlike me, is able to find compassion even for those creatures. Her Dana is a memorable character: soft front, strong back — Brené Brown would approve. Every character rings true, with believable emotions.

4.5 stars. An emotional and action packed rollercoaster of a novel. Gripping and relevant.

Probably 3.5 rounded up. Great book and really well written. I just wish we would have gotten some more explanation and a less rushed ending

Very interesting take on time traveling, and a very intense book. The ending was a bit rushed though, could've kept on reading for 50 extra pages.

I was gripped from page 1 and couldn't help but blitz through the whole thing. It's a simple story but told so well and the author avoided making people 2-dimensionally good or bad.

Any time I stay up till 2am on a weeknight to finish a book in a single sitting denotes a phenomenal book. The characters and relationships are so incredibly wrought and complex. Beautiful, gripping, wrenching, incredible.

Such a great story.

This novel is honestly harrowing. It's hard for me to say much about this because it's essentially a modern classic and there isn't much for me to add to the discussion. I'll just say I had a little trouble getting into it at first, because the dialogue felt a little stilted and inorganic, but I quickly fell into the rhythm of things and found this difficult to put down – but also difficult to read. It's a compelling read that I highly recommend.

Re-read in light of the turmoil our country is currently in. This is a favorite of mine... it is a look at what slavery really looked like for black Americans. There is no pretty plantation picture here.

Um livro de ficção cientifica muito bem escrito e que captura sua atenção a todo momento. Fácil de ler rapidamente, mas melhor lido devagar.

Short review: Kanye should read this book.

Long review: The only other Butler novel I've read is Dawn, which I basically couldn't put down. I'll say right off that I enjoyed that book a lot more than this one and felt that her Butler's very logical, methodical writing style better serves sci-fi with a lot of moving parts. The very unadorned prose felt a little bare in this case, with Dana often feeling one-note and almost perversely logical. But that's just style and really only affected my enjoyment of the story and less the story itself.

The story is fascinating. Slavery is one of those historical horrors that have been rehashed over and over in popular culture so much that it almost doesn't seem real. The subtleties of it are often lost in the historical retelling, becoming a horror show that your mind shuts off. Kindred is all about the subtleties of slavery, really bringing home a power imbalance that perverted both master and slave. I've never read Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I'd never really thought that much about the relationships that would form between people on opposite ends of the power spectrum and all the complications that that entails. The human in people recognizes the human in others, but that voice can be shut up.

At points I did want to shake Dana for what she forgave Rufus for, and it did stretch my suspension of disbelief, but I can see it as a coping mechanism. It's exhausting to live in anger, to fight back constantly, much easier sometimes to forgive and let things happen, an instinct that Dana has to actively fight against.

There's a lot more going on in this book. It's definitely one I'll be chewing on for a while, and while I didn't always love the writing, the subjects explored have so much dimension that I know I'll keep coming back to it.

There's

4.2/5 stars

One of the few things that ruins a book for me is having to read it in class. Usually, when this happens, I end up hating the book because I am forced to read at the pace that the teacher has us read in class. Putting that aside, Kindred is still a great book to read. Time traveling can be confusing at times, but overall we see the author develop these characters well enough to be able to sympathize with even the worst characters in the series. I really liked the ending as well, because it wasn't what I expected. I had expected them to return to the future and stay there, but the reason why this happened was surprising.

I hadn't expected her to burn everything down and for Dana to kill Rufus. Throughout the book, we see Dana feel sympathy for Rufus and try to get him to be a better person, but she fails. We not only see her go back to the future, but we see that she holds no remorse over killing Rufus. 

Although it was a good book because of how I was introduced to it, it'll take a while before I pick this book up again.

A little SFF twist enables this novel to actively contrast early 19th century slavery, with one African-American woman's perspective of the here and now. The here and now is California in the 1970ies, and Dana is a young writer who mysteriously gets transported across time and space onto a farm in Maryland in 1815. She discovers her ancestral ties to the farm, and due to her inability to return to her own time by free will, she is forced to settle in with the household. She witnesses and experiences first hand the brutal and unjust treatments slaves experience at the hand of their masters. Dana has a hard time suppressing her modern day impulses at the sigh of these injustices, yet must learn to do so in order to stay alive and protect others.

What I thought started as rather simplistic writing, quickly turns into a suspenseful tale and an interesting perspective at a dark time of American history. Butler teases interesting questions by giving the reader occasional temptations of empathy for the slave owners. How much are we all products of our time, and how quickly would we succumb to the role our skin-color imposes on us?