pickThis was a doozie! I‘ve read THE RIVER like three times and the follow ups, so I know Heller (a) is excellently skilled in knowing about, describing, and plopping you firmly into nature/wild settings under suspenseful circumstances and (b) is unafraid of taking your heart and making it pound harder, grow bigger, and then break into a zillion pieces. And yet, I was astounded. At turns gritty, gruesome, and gorgeous. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ *watch those TW, tho 😳
pickRuby is now working for the League, leading a team of teens with special abilities to try & bring down the corrupt government. The League learn of a possible breakthrough, the reason why they developed these abilities & possibly a way to treat it. This valuable information is safely stored on a flashdrive & Ruby is sent on a side mission to retrieve it (continued)
I never read the books (wrong era I think). My ex-husband thought our 12-year-old would like it, but he also never read it, just saw the movies. Today she told me "they don't do anything, but they kiss a lot". Well, I got my sex education mostly through books ?
Always weird to see the place of my origin turn up in print. But also this is an extremely odd and meandering list of places.
so-so3✨ The second book in the series gives a lot more background as you read. It does some flashbacks. I‘m not a fan of flashbacks, and even less a fan of love triangles so not completely my cup of tea. I liked the writing, the emotion, and the world is a fun concept.
pickA lot of people were reading this book and looking to it for guidance earlier this year, with LA on fire, billionaires taking over with their insatiable wendigo greed, and a fascist back in power. Olivia saw these events coming and she wrote about it in 1993. Earthseed is an idea, but it‘s also a world that we can bring into being. It is community, it is love, it is service to others. We are witnessing frightening times and each day, we are ⬇️
so-soMy #AAM choice for Kurt Vonnegut was a bit of a miss for me. Strange and quirky, it was a little too out there for me, the wild twists and turns kept taking me out of the story. I‘ve really enjoyed Breakfast of Champions when I read it years ago so this one might just not have been for me. #audio @Soubhiville
pickA MASTERFUL conclusion to the trilogy that has now risen to the top of my all-time favorites!!
Sorry in advance to all the people I talk to in the next year who will get sick of hearing me preach about it 😄 “All rejoice!”
I hope people who read Parable of the Sower will think about where we seem to be heading—we the United States, even we the human species. Where are we going? What sort of future are we creating? Is it the kind of future you want to live in? If it isn‘t, what can we do to create a better future? Individually and in groups, what can we do?
—Octavia E. Butler
Pasadena, CA
May 1999
pickI'm having a hard time describing the way this book punched me in the gut and left me breathless.
Reading this in the present day, when it was published in the mid 90s, is downright eerie. Butler saw the writing on the wall and created a near future dystopia that feels far too close to reality at times.
Woven through with social commentary, this book is an incredibly powerful, haunting read that I 100% recommend.
