Parable of the Sower

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By Octavia E. Butler

Publisher Description

From a celebrated, award-winning author, a modern classic about a young girl fighting for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, perfect for fans of N.K. Jemisin and Margaret Atwood.

Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding social chaos and anarchy caused by climate change and economic crisis. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy—a debilitating sensitivity to others' emotions.

Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith . . . and a startling vision of human destiny.

Includes a foreword by LeVar Burton and an afterword by N. K. Jemisin

Lauren's story continues in The Parable of the Talents.

"In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time, Octavia Butler's 'Parable' books may be unmatched."—The New Yorker

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Parable of the Sower Reviews

4.0

MERELVD

Created 39 minutes ago

“Instead of this being called dystopian it should be called horror, what a nightmare of a future. This book is about a fallen version of the USA. The economy and political landscape are almost non existent. There are little to no jobs, people are starving on the streets litteraly robbing and killing each other for food. The government only exists in name. The laws are being ignored and the police does nothing to protect them. To top it all off the climate has reached a point of extreme dryness, it litteraly only rains every few years. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. However, in this world of pure despair there are still people trying to make the most of it. There are people who live in walled off communities, similar to the gated communities we know exist today. Our main character lives in one of these places. She has access to food, water, education and religion. Her only problem is a condition she has obtained through her mother abusing drugs when she was in the womb, which is called sharing. This means she feels another person's pain, but besides this she lives quite a peaceful lofe. She has time to think about the state of the world, the future and the most important thing to her, her own religion. Earthseed is a religion she made up to make sense of the world. She believes God is change. As the world around her changes and her life becomes more dangerous, Earthseed is her rock. Therefore this book deals a lot with religion. What is the purpose of religion? What is God? Are questions we explore in this book. Besides religion this book drawls a lot of parallels to the state of the modern world. In this book there is debt slavery which is extremely similar to what is happening to workers in countries such as Qatar. Companies 'employ' people, give them housing, then don't pay them enough so they become indebted to the company. Litteraly the exact same thing happens in this book which is kind off crazy considering this was written 20 years ago. Besides this a very prominent parallel are the huge differences between the poor and rich. In this book they are very extreme. You almost want to say they are exagerated but unfortunately this is the situation in pars of the wolrd. The rich get to live in these walled of neighborhoods, while people are starving at their doors. This book is just packed with commentary and sometimes simply exhibition of the current social climate. You can discuss all the different parallels and themes of the story for literal hours. Considering how packed it is with this content, the book is surprisingly easy to read. Going into this book I was expecting a very literary, speculative writing style, but the style is simple. It almost reminded me of how the hunger games is written. This book is structured via diary entries of the main character where she discusses the events happening to her and her thoughts and feelings. Everything is presented pretty straightforward in my opinion, from the worldbuilding to the main characters thought process. For me this was a little disappointing. I was hoping for the book to be a bit more challenging than it ended up being. That doesn't take away form what the book is talking about and how it handles this, more to do with my expectations beforehand. Overall a bleak dystopian with a lot of social commentary. In this review I litteraly only talked about a teeny tiny bit of what is inside this book. So if you are a fan of the dystopian genre this is definitely a good one to pick up.”

Well-structured Dark Dystopian Easy to read

mud

Created about 1 hour ago

Victoria

Created about 9 hours ago

Marisa Kolka

Created about 10 hours ago

“Hot damn, I loved this book so much. It somehow managed to strike an impossible balance of dark and inspiring. This was my first read by Octavia Butler, and I knew it was a dystopian novel set in the 2020s, but I didn’t realize the full scope of the story. I don’t normally love journal entry-style narration, but Lauren’s voice was so clear, authentic, and concise while still feeling like a natural diary of a teenager. Her wisdom makes sense given the era she lives in — as the eldest daughter she carries a heavy burden in her family, in a world where one tiny mistake can get you killed, so of course she had to grow up quickly. It was exciting to witness the birth of a movement, and I was shocked by how hopeful it made me feel despite all of the horror. It was a timely reminder of the resiliency of humans and that when we are able to trust and lean on each other, we can get through even the worst case scenario. Highly, highly recommend this to anyone who needs a dose of hope — but it is HEAVY and dark (as is much of our reality), so I wouldn’t read it if I weren’t in a good place emotionally. Looking forward to diving into the sequel.”

Miranda Borges

Created about 11 hours ago

About Octavia E. Butler

OCTAVIA E. BUTLERwas a renowned writer who received a MacArthur "Genius" Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work. She was the author of several award-winning novels including Parable of the Sower, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and was acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future. Sales of her books have increased enormously since her death as the issues she addressed in her Afrofuturistic, feminist novels and short fiction have only become more relevant. She passed away on February 24, 2006.