Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

genre: science fiction

Lauren Olamina's life inside her gated neighborhood is about as safe as you can get in California.  With water prices being so high and food being so scarce, the peacefulness of her world lies in the fact that they can shut the gate on the marauders and criminals stalking the streets of California who are looking to take Lauren's family and their neighbors have.  Lauren, though, she's special.  Not only forward-thinking, Lauren knows that the religion her father has been preaching will not save her, not in this world of hunt-or-be-hunted.  Lauren, she has her own ideas about religion.  Lauren's practice too, though, she makes plans.  And if the disaster she fears ever comes upon her beloved community, she knows she can only count on herself.

I really, really enjoyed this post-apocalyptic story of survival and humanity.  Lauren is so intriguing, so tough and yet compassionate - I loved watching her develop her ideas about God and how to make those ideas fit with the world she has to survive in.  It's a grim and disturbing world, what Lauren and those she meets have to navigate is upsetting, partially because it feels all too possible based on the current climate here in America.   As she learns and grows, Lauren finds what's worth living and dying for - and I was all in.

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