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.

This is a very good book I'm so sad she never got to conti the series after one sequel. 

INCREDIBLE AUDIOBOOK. not good for my anxiety but harrowing in a good way. also not sure i wrapped my head around earthseed, but very interesting to see the “birth” of a religion

 “The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren't any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.” 

This book started in 2025 and goes on to a few years later, it's a dystopian world that is not hard to believe at all. This is a an LA which is infested with disease, poverty and water shortage. Not hard to believe right? We could be looking at our near future and that's what makes it terrifying. 

Lauren is living inside the wall where the “fortunate” lives. She's been wanting to pack up and go for the longest time but some things are holding her back until she's forced to when something happens to her hometown.  I love how strong and caring Lauren is. She has helped several people who need it and tried to give people the benefit of the doubt. 

It's both heart breaking and horrifying what happens when there is no proper government ruling and when people are left to fend for themselves. I hope we never get to see that day.

I didn't enjoy reading the bit about religion. Didn't see the point of it that much. Lauren was really passionate about it though and could be quite preachy about Earthseed.

There is a second book to this and I'm not sure if I would like to continue. Thank you to @booksreadbyem for suggesting this for my 12/12 challenge.

I read this for a seminary class on theology and culture.

This book was difficult for me to get through because of the descriptions of brutal violence and how depressing so much of the story was. (I may not have hyperempathy the way Lauren does, but I often wish I were not as sensitive/empathetic as I am even though I recognize that it can also be a gift.) I was also uncomfortable with the relationship that develops between 16 or 17-year-old Lauren and 57-year-old Bankole. I know she had to grow up too fast, but this still seems problematic in terms of consent and power dynamics.

So much of the future described in this novel hits eerily close to home: fires, epidemics, guns, drugs, food and water shortages, while other people insist on living in denial. At one point Lauren says the adults are “still anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back.” This seems extremely relevant to all of us wishing things would “get back to normal” as in, life before the pandemic (although “normal” was not working very well for most people even then). It also sounds like all the “make America great again” folks, who seem to think of the 1950s as the epitome of what our culture and society should be.

Quotes that stick with me:
“it took a plague to make some of the people realize that things could change.”

“Moral: The weak can overcome the strong if the weak persist. Persisting isn't always safe, but it's often necessary.”

“Embrace diversity. Unite— Or be divided, robbed, ruled, killed By those who see you as prey. Embrace diversity Or be destroyed.”

“From what I've read,” I said to him, “the world goes crazy every three or four decades. The trick is to survive until it goes sane again.”

“No one should travel alone in this world.”

“It will be hard to live here, but if we work together, and if we're careful, it should be possible. We can build a community here.”

“Human beings will survive of course. Some other countries will survive. Maybe they'll absorb what's left of us. Or maybe we'll just break up into a lot of little states quarreling and fighting with each other over whatever crumbs are left. That's almost happened now with states shutting themselves off from one another, treating state lines as national borders.”

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!

I can't believe I didn't find this as a young adult obsessed with dystopias, but in 1993 YA wasn't a genre and this certainly wasn't marketed at me. It didn't hit as hard as I expected, and I think that's a combination of growing up on this type of story (if you read Australian YA in the 90s, you know), but also, it's...happening. It's entirely conceivable. It could be inevitable. The story starts in 2024, and that's eighteen months from when I first read it. Maybe that's the scary part for readers.

The parts I found more interesting to sink my brain-teeth into were Lauren-as-Prophet. Lauren tells the story through journal entries and extracts from the religious text she's building around her created religion, Earthseed. Both Lauren and Butler are former Baptists, and the exploration of an (intentionally) simplistic reaction and adaptation of Christianity into something that meets Lauren's needs and hopes. The goal of Earthseed is to fulfill the destiny of leaving Earth and heading for the stars; reflecting Laurens goal of abandoning her community - she believes both community and Earth itself can't be sustained in the long-term.

Mostly, I enjoyed the journeys - the physical journey Lauren takes, the followers she collects along the way, the character growth and revelation. Like most dystopia, Lauren keeps her hope in a time of despair and becomes a leader because of it. 

Butler noped out of completing the intended series of Earthseed, because it was too depressing to research and write, but the sequel, Parable of the Talents, is on my TBR.

Excellent

WOW - I loved, loved, loved this audio book. Octavia was a brilliant writer. Her descriptions of events and situations are spectacular.

There are plenty of reviews to tell you what this book is about so I don't need to. Do yourself a favor and listen to this book.

Butler was a genius writer.

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

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 hate that she did not live to finish this series. It was a fantastic start.

Read for my “Make me read it challenge” – blog readers told me which of five choices on my TBR shelf to complete.

I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without the challenge, because this is a helluva bleak dystopian vision of America 30 years in the future – that is, now. It is fascinating how much Butler got right – a California devastated by drought and fire, rampant and destructive drug use, people walling themselves off in fear and distrust and turning to guns as the only answer for self-protection, a hopeless government that is selling out its own people ... I could go on, but you get the idea. Butler could see the writing on the wall, and even though things are not quite as dire as portrayed in this novel, it increasingly feels as though we're teetering on the brink of such total chaos.

The response of the young protagonist is to venture out looking for a place to build a better life, gathering a chosen, trusted set of people as her community, and inventing an artificial, made-up religion she calls “Earthseed” to give them hope and purpose. This latter does not get much actual play in this book, other than verses from her journal at the head of each chapter, and a few scenes in which she tries to explain it to other characters. To their credit, none of the characters seem very excited about the idea, and some of them consider it absolute bosh – but they like her, so they will go along with it anyway. I can only say, just asserting that something feels true to you, does not make it true. That's not religion, that's fanaticism.

The idea of Earthseed is that human beings need to escape from this hopelessly damaged planet and find a new place among the stars. I think it would be far more interesting to consider how people could deal with the problems on this world than just run away to another one. The human mind seems irresistibly attracted to pouring resources, energy and ingenuity into creating complicated machines, rather than transforming and healing relationships. This is probably why I'm not a huge science fiction fan.

Another random aspect of the story is the main character's “hyperempathy,” a fetal-drug-induced condition that means she shares the feelings of other people, or rather what she thinks their feelings are. This brought up the question for me of why she couldn't train herself not to imagine their feelings – but I suppose that would make her a psychopath. As it is, the condition has led her to be very cold and calculating about feelings and sensations, and (ironically) not very sympathetic in a normal sense. A creepy romance with a man 40 years older than her adds another bizarre touch.

I was curious by the end how the community's experiment would turn out, so I will probably read the next book, but I'm not terribly hopeful that it will be an enjoyable experience, based on this one.

4,5

Pensando muitos pensamentos depois do final deste livro. Comecei sem saber para onde iria e agora preciso saber para onde vai! Fui aos poucos conhecendo Lauren e as ideias dela, a nova sociedade retratada e muitas novas maneiras de pensar. É um livrão!

Well written book. Lauren is a great protagonist and I like the world building. This almost seemed like a prequel though with a lot of adventure and walking and set up. Will definitely be reading the second book though!

I'm sad that I did not really like this book. I did read it to the end, and I saw some good things but still did not like it. I wanted to like the story - I think I had heard too much good stuff. I went in expecting science fiction and excitement.

The setting - a dystopian not too distant future where there are few jobs and less water - is probably even easier to imagine today than at the time of the writing. The skills and efforts of the characters are well documented and seemed realistic. The drugs, dangers, and slippery slope of slavery coming from a need for security serve as a frightening (and imaginable) warning.

Octavia does a great job of making complete characters that are real enough to touch. The structure and focus of this novel did not work for me. I didn't like the pretense of the point of view character. I even more did not like the delivery, like a diary in spurts, of the story. The effect of a character I didn't really like, even while I was rooting for her and her family and friend, reading me her diary while preaching to me was overwhelming.

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.

Butler continues to tell gripping stories with well-wrought characters and large-looming social commentary. Butler's use and building of religion is beautiful and grounding and unique. This story is incredibly dark but still somehow hopeful. I see it less as a cautionary tale and more an example of the sort of community building that will be necessary if we want to build a better world. There are definitely some loose ends I'm hoping get tied up in the sequel.

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.

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.

“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.

4.5 stars

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.

I didn't like this. I thought it was well written, the characters were clearly delineated, the locations were all clear and distinct.
But it was very depressing and I don't see the SF&F elements to this.
As near as I could tell, the cause of the economic collapse is not the result of any traditional SF reasons.
All the jobs weren't replaced by robots or AI, nobody developed replicators, nobody discovered magic.
I'm guessing it was because of corporate greed and political support of that greed.
The new religion is only marginally different than existing ones and its followers didn't acquire any new abilities, so it is just as effective as all other religions.

I wanted to read something by Ms. Butler because I often heard she was a good writer.
I would agree that she is, but I didn't find the book very interesting.

I'm not fond of depressing openings.