I recently finished reading/listening to Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. It has been in my to read shelf FOREVER. I've enjoyed her other novels and just could never get into it.
Well since I heard it was set in 2025, so that gave me the push I needed. I know I'm a bit sensitive right now, but I have never had a book disturb me as much this one. There is basically every kind of trigger warning possible. What was really disturbing was how feasible her vision was. Books like The Road or 1984 are so extreme that they don't feel real. I feel like I could wake up in a few months and inhabit her version of America. The balance of forced normalcy and the extreme horrors of humanity just hit me harder than any book recently has.
It's not a perfect book, but I haven't had a book make me think like this in a long time.
by dioscurideux
7 Comments
The witcher books
Oh dude Parable scared me more than most actual horror books. It felt way too fuckin real.
NO RAGRETS
The midnight library pissed me off beyond belief.
I’ve only regretted reading books because I didn’t enjoy them. I felt like I wasted time pushing through books just to count them as finished.
Atlas Shrugged
I went in completely blind, knew nothing about the author, and about half-way through it I was still thinking “Every character in this book is either a cruel asshole or a complete monster- who am I supposed to root for?”
Then I learned about Ayn Rand and her many flaws and foibles.
I think a lot of people regret reading Elon’s autobiography at this point