parable of the sower

31 Oct, 2025

Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower (1993) follows the story of Lauren Olamina, a 15-year-old Black girl with hyper-empathy, a condition that causes her to feel the pain she witnesses of others. Parable of the Sower takes place in a climate change-stricken, drug addicted, violent America from the years 2024 to 2027. Drinkable water is scarce and money even more. It is a dystopic imagining of the future (as of reading date, the present).

General TWs: death, violence, rape, underage sex, drugs, pedophilia, incest, abuse (there are many more)

This book is not for the faint of heart. The prose breathes down your neck and brings you right into the scene. Horrible crimes don't just happen, they are expected.

“Embrace diversity.
Unite—
Or be divided,
robbed,
ruled,
killed
By those who see you as prey.
Embrace diversity
Or be destroyed.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

Lauren lives in a gated community in Los Angeles. There, she is mostly secure from the despair of the outside world. However, she wants to prepare for what she suspects is ultimately going to happen—the collapse of her little community and survival in the outside world.

Butler predicts that even in a state of socioeconomic and political collapse, most people will still attempt to cling to their routines and regular lives. Lauren's religion, Earthseed, seeks to combat this through the notion that God is Change. She believes adaptation is the only way to thrive within a dying world. Earthseed advocates for the people in it to take matters into their own hands. Earthseed advocates for connection and community.

(By the time I am writing this, it has been multiple months since I read it and therefore I do not remember some of the stuff that happens)

The first half of the book is of Lauren's experience inside the walls of her community. The second, after her town was demolished, follows her turning into an adult and her efforts to survive.

The ending of the book is kinda anticlimactic.... there is just more story to be told. I plan to read the 2nd book in the series (Parable of the Talents) sometime soon maybe by 2026 if i have to... apparently its better so i will keep my eyes on the lookout

yeah shits disturbing idk what to say

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” - Matthew 13