Parable of the Talents

it’s been a little while since i finished POTT, and although i wouldnt say that it was necessary, it was certainly important. asha’s POV (also—asha is so much more fitting than larkin LMAO.. that and “acorn” really have me doubting lauren’s ability to name things) gave me a more complex view of lauren and earthseed as a whole, one that we didn’t get in POTS. at times i was definitely frustrated because of asha’s biases, but her flaws felt genuine and spread throughout the entirety of her character.

i felt that earthseed itself didn’t have as much of an important role, which was a little disappointing. POTS and even POTT are books that help me imagine where america is headed &/or where we could go, what we could look like if we were liberated. so i was a little disheartened that so much of the book was about the consequences of lauren’s lack of forethought without any further discussion of that other than one time when asha was like “your god is change! how did you not see this coming??” because like REAL!! acorn’s whole shtick was that they required discussion and questioning, but it felt like while they were invited to do this of earthseed they could NOT do this of lauren’s leadership… i just kept wondering, what is the point of all of their suffering? did this have to happen? is there a point? could they have relied on earthseed more?

some of the characters were better than others too, like lauren and asha and what was that bitches name at the end? brie? clark? lily? the one who.. allie? sent her bc she knew she was struggling, they all felt real to me. but marc + bankole felt less real, and the whole CA + Jarrett stuff—although eerily and terrifyingly accurate to real life—also felt… fake? in some way. i don’t know, that was more of a vibe.

my only other issue w the book was how much octavia butler re-explained shit from the first book. this was my biggest pet peeve when reading scifi in middle school and you can bet it holds up today… LMAO

overall, though, it was a good sequel!! sequels often disappointing me and even if this one didnt completely awe and inspire me, it didn’t do that lol!! and i walked away w more questions & thought pieces. i intent to come back to this series over and over again. :)

My thoughts feel like they're all in a jumble now that I've finished this book. On the one hand, I think this (and the first book) are must-reads. I think they paint a bleak, but all-too-familiar picture of where our future could be heading.

This might be a little spoiler-y: I thought the Earthseed verses in this book came off as way more preachy than they did in the first one. (Look, I'm not a religious person, and I'm the kind of person who believes that religion causes more harm than good on a global scale. So take that as you will.) I thought Earthseed supplemented the ideas of hope vs. despair in Parable of the Sower, but towards the end of this one, it felt very heavy-handed. At times, I wasn't the biggest fan of Lauren, our narrator - but maybe I'm not meant to feel sympathy for her, per se...I don't know.

These two books (Talents and Sower) are hard to read at times. They are not a light read. I had to take breaks at time from all the brutality (tw: rape, suicide, sexual abuse). Butler paints a harsh picture of what the world would be like for women and minorities in the kind of world that's eroding due to climate change and falling into the hands of religious zealots. It's hard to believe this book was written in the 90's, because it hits a little too close to home.

My thoughts are all over the place. Do I recommend these books? 10000% yes. I think everyone should read these, but with that being said, they are not meant to be a fun, comforting, read. But they will leave you with a lot of thoughts (at least that's what they did for me) and will hopefully challenge you to look at the world we live in.