There is a reason why I can’t stand sci-fi novels and “Parable of the Sower” ended up being the perfect example to once again prove that point. What sounded like an interesting premise, a novel that was published in 1993, written about the future between the years of 2024 and 2027, ended up being a complete disappointment. Having previously read Butler’s “Kindred” and not having completely hated it, I was willing to give another one of the author’s book a chance, once again, as for the previous book of hers, due to a book club having chosen it.

A characteristic that I saw appear in parallel to the way “Kindred” was written, was the lack of depth of the characters and the simplistic dialogues, which might just be the author’s style throughout all of her books. The story here was written from the perspective of the main character, Lauren, in the shape of her diary entries. Nevertheless, I wasn’t able to form any compassion or attachment to her. Regardless the format which would normally imply an automatic sense of intimacy, the storytelling felt rather distant. It was written in a way that felt authentic to the way a 16 year old would sound, which tested my patience rather than making me want to read on.

Tomorrow, I’ll be sixteen. Only sixteen. I feel older. I want to be older. I need to be older. I hate being a kid. Time drags!

p. 79

None of the other characters stood out to me and the plot didn’t pull me in either. It took about 140 pages for anything of interest to happen. A major part of the book focused on the main character’s creation of a new type of “religion”, her invented verses for it starting off every new chapter. For some reason, it came off as naive to me and added on to the points that I didn’t enjoy about the book. It was literally a chore to finally get to the end of the 311 pages. Below some examples of the style that you can expect as a reader:

Jill closed her eyes. ‘Oh shit’ she said. And then, ‘All right, all right! I didn’t see them. I really didn’t. I’ll watch better. No one else will get by me.’

I clasped her hand for a moment longer, then let it go. ‘Okay. Let’s get out of here. Let’s collect that scared woman and her scared little kid and get out of here.’

The two scared people turned out to be the most racially mixed that I had ever met.

p. 272

I looked at him. For a moment I was too angry to let myself speak. When I could control my voice, I said, ‘It’s all right if you don’t believe, but don’t laugh. Do you know what it means to have something to believe in? Don’t laugh.’

After a while he said, ‘All right.’

After a longer while, I said, ‘Fixing the world is not what Earthseed is about.’

p. 260

If with non-fiction, I’m hoping to learn something new, with fiction, I hope to feel something while reading. In this case, I felt annoyed, frustrated, irritated and bored. From the predictable plot to what felt almost like a glorification of the relationship between a 50 year old man and an 18 year old woman, this is a rare occurrence where I simply can’t think of anything I found enjoyable about this book. The only little quote that caught my attention was the following one, being such an accurate reminder of what the world is nowadays:

One of the astronauts on the latest Mars mission has been killed. Something went wrong with her protective suit and the rest of her team couldn’t get her back to the shelter in time to save her. People here in the neighborhood are saying she had no business going to Mars anyway. All that money wasted on another crazy space trip when so many people here on earth can’t afford water, food, or shelter.

p. 17

I can’t even possibly think of anyone I would recommend this book to besides forcing my potential enemies to read it… I have definitely encountered worse books than this one before but “The Parable of the Sower” was the most disappointing one I have come across this year. If you’re generally not a fan of sci-fi, I would highly suggest you to skip this one! Even if it’s not necessarily the “sci-fi” quality that I found bothersome, since there isn’t anything “otherworldly” about the story. The only invented part about it, is the fact that a world 30 years in the future is described.

There is a reason for why Butler’s novels still continue to be popular nowadays though, and to me, it seems like the author as a persona might be more interesting than her books. I enjoyed diving into the discovery of the fact that she wrote on the side of many jobs that she took on in order to make ends meet (Brown, 2025) or how she gathered inspiration for her made-up worlds, closely following the development of society, its news, trends and developments (George, 2025). Essentially, this made me curious about the book “Positive Obsession” by Susana M. Morris about the author’s life rather than wanting to read anything else written by Butler.

★☆☆☆☆ (1/5)

_{Edition: ISBN 978-1-4722-6366-7
Headline Publishing Group, 2019 (first published in 1993)}

Sources:

• Brown, S. (2025): “Why the internet is still obsessed with Octavia E. Butler, years after her death.” NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/octavia-e-butler-internet-biography-positive-obsession-susanna-miller-rcna223730. Last accessed: 21/10/2025.
• George, L. (2025): “Charting One’s Own Course”. Alta Journal. https://www.altaonline.com/books/nonfiction/a65934838/octavia-butler-positive-obsession-review. Last accessed: 21/10/2025.