Comments (47)

What did you think about this title?
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Oct 21, 2023sharynmitzo rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
This is a wonderfully written and beautifully spoken audiobook. BUT, not for the feint of heart. Serious and horrendous conditions around the collapse of society. I highly recommend this book.
Jul 03, 2023SarahTink rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
A lot of people will shove a sci-fi book in your face and go, "Oh, but this one is relevant, this one is SO RELEVANT to our times!" as if that's not one of the major points of speculative fiction. Of course it's relevant to our times--all…
Jun 06, 2023blue_dog_41158 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
While this book is a great things, one of the greatest things about it should be its depiction of an unsettling apocalyptic future. However, the future Butler describes sadly seems to be becoming a reality. We should all heed Butler's…
Apr 15, 2023jprocino_0 rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
I didn't like it as much as I desperately wanted to. Possibly because this was published in 1993 and we have since been saturated with loads of speculative dystopian-esque media since? It was very easy to read and generally a good book,…
Apr 05, 2023kellye_12 rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
I remember reading this book not too long after it came out. After reading it again recently, well, our future is truly bleak. We are already seeing random fire outbreaks, Christian nationalistic governments, uncontrollable drugs,…
Apr 03, 2023Russ_A rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Lauren is a tall, strong, black teenager in Southern California. She watches the apocalypse, or, more accurately, slowpocalypse, engulf her area. Life has deteriorated to where thievery, arson, scavenging and bribery have become the…
Mar 21, 2023beetlebaily rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Superb writing. Butler's vison of her country's future is about as dystopic as it can get. But given current conditions and the abundance of guns, it is not completely outlandish. Add climate change and nuclear weapons to the picture and…
Feb 22, 2023Spillie rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Not my usual read but I found this story an interesting take on building community, especially in a time of crisis. Being one year away from the timeline in the story, this reader can see how little it would take for this story to become…
Feb 18, 2023Anita_Dickey rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
I read this for an a-z challenge. It was amazing. Not to graphic or chilling but just the right amout of thrill. I will be reading more of this author
Feb 15, 2023leahrei rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
I read about the author, Octavia Butler, a renowned African-American who received numerous awards for writing about feminism, social observations. I wasn't familiar with her so decided to check out one of her books. Maybe I chose the wrong…
Jan 14, 2023JCLBeckyC rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This is a remarkable dystopian fiction novel. It deserves five stars, but I can only give it four because it's too depressingly realistic and left me filled with dread. I'm usually a big fan of depressing reads, but only if they somehow…
Nov 19, 2022
SAL recommends-2 books
Sep 12, 2022SF2242 rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
I think her premise is false. We do act on our environment and our environment acts on us, but our environment didn't bring us into existence from nothingness. We are created, but I don't think we have the ability to act on our…
Jun 29, 2022krazykat13 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Another great interpretation of the future by Ms. Butler, but this one feels like a real possibility. Looking forward to reading the second book and the graphic novel version.
Jun 10, 2022
A dystopian novel set in a future that is very quickly becoming our present. Eerie to read in the modern day, but so powerful in its imaginings of a world devastated by climate change and economic collapse. Butler creates memorable…
May 28, 2022
Recommended by Karen Lee, NCC
May 25, 2022jillybee72 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
This book is an absolute classic, it plunges you into a world.
Jan 03, 2022
Parable of the Sower is based in the years between 2024 and 2027, and some of the events portrayed in the story can apply to our present-day society or of past eras. An impactful part of the novel revolved around people suffering in a…
Aug 31, 2021JCLChrisK rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
An incredibly prescient story--published in 1993; set later this decade--about life during the gradual collapse of U.S. civilization due to extreme income inequality and global warming, and about one young woman's attempts both to survive…
Jul 16, 2021bogwolf rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Every year as the fire seasons ravage my state, I am reminded of the the possible future presented in Parable of the Sower. Octavia Butler writes about an unlikely prophet (are there any other kind?), an adolescent survivor of an…
Apr 10, 2021
I finally read this sci-fi classic and the overachieving take away I had was how close that world is to our own. I was surprised to see how many scary parallels this story had to our current world and then after some research on the story…
Mar 13, 2021JCLIanH rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Required reading, whether you are a sci-fi person or not. Butler's future--in which a climate crisis and increasing inequality has led to a quasi-apocalypse in mid-2020s Los Angeles--feels eerily familiar and should be a warning of the…
Mar 03, 2021Wako rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Recently I’ve been revisiting the futurism found within 90’s cinema. It’s 2021 now, so why not take a look at how Johnny Mnemonic envisioned this year playing out? Ok, so maybe the pains and trails of 2020 pushed me to look to cinema for…
AmyKyme
Jan 15, 2021AmyKyme rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Amazing, what a fantastic book!
Jul 14, 2020KerrySK17 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Intense dystopian novel written in the early 1980s by Octavia Butler. I appreciate the development of characters, especially the main character Lauren and her yearning for a better and more meaningful life as she tries to incorporate…