Parable of the Sower

This was written long enough ago that it was, I believe, meant to be a near-future-within-our-lifetimes dystopia, but since I'm reading it a good 15+ years after it was published, it's set less than 10 years in the actual future, which was an interesting change of pace.

As dystopians have gotten ridiculously popular in the last decade, I've read my fair share of them. Some of them made sense with actual potential real world events (Station Eleven, The Circle), some of them were set presumably far enough in the future that it's possible to suspend some belief (The Hunger Games), and some of them I couldn't see how this dystopia would ever have happened based on how the actual real world works (Divergent, The Selection).

What I liked about Parable of the Sower is that it wasn't too far a stretch to see how things got so bad in this California future: Climate change reduces supply of things like water and food, demand drives up costs, people can't find jobs that pay, people have very limited senses of their own safety, poverty and desperation make people do violent, terrible, and also stupid things to stay alive. Overall I liked the main character, Lauren, and her desire to read and learn how to save herself and her attempts to get her family to take this seriously. I liked most of the cast of characters Lauren ends up traveling with too. There was a lot of interaction in learning who could be trusted, in using your instincts to determine the truths and the lies people tell in trying to stay alive.

I was really wrapped up in this world. The only thing I wasn't crazy about, honestly, was the religion/belief system that Lauren was “discovering”/divining. To me, it felt like it could have been plucked out and replaced with literally any religion or cult system, and it would have felt exactly the same. The only urgency in the religion came from Lauren, and I never got the sense that anyone else believed in it the same way she did. They didn't need to, in order to still be part of her community!

I just found out this is the first of two books, so maybe they explain more of this in the next one. I'll probably pick it up later, to see what happens.

TW: rape (including child rape), sexual abuse, incest, physical violence (including against children), slavery, drug abuse.