pickTruly nothing to say about this series that hasn‘t been said. Wonderfully written, fantastically executed, distressingly still relevant. I reread the lot while waiting to reacquire Ballad on Libby as I got 3/4 of the way through it before it got automatically sent back.
pickI‘m glad I finally read this—and glad I read it as an adult, not in school. My history classes definitely didn‘t give me the necessary understanding of the Soviet Union (though perhaps an English teacher would have). I know a lot more about that period in history now, and I‘m sure that gave me a fuller appreciation of this satire. Don‘t let the pigs have all the apples, folks.
pickYou either love or hate Ali Smith. I love her. This was a delight to read, I flew through this short dystopia novel about 2 siblings navigating the world on their own. 4 🌟
And of course, I perused the book nook and came away with a good haul from there as well. 🤓📚
Apologies in advance, bc I keep snapping photos of sections for myself. Not unlike Fahrenheit 451, Parable of the Sower, or The Handmaid‘s Tale, I‘m floored by how resonant this feels to right now. #WithTheBanned
so-soHmm… my biggest con about this book was the writing style. There were hardly any paragraph breaks, punctuation, or any quotation marks indicating people speaking- that drove me crazy. Within a page the scenario would change, different people would talk, and little to no transition in between. In spite of that, this was an interesting portrayal of a mother trying to hold everything together during a fascist regime. The writing made it hard to enjoy
pickWonderful to finally read this, many years after reading (and loving) Oryx & Crake. This added more substance and perspective to the events and characters of the first book and was great to experience the lives of some outside the compounds. Some of the gardeners hymns became a drag, and the coincidences were too much. Otherwise fantastic and looking forward to reading the last of the trilogy.
I knocked out the first 20 chapters yesterday in about 5.75 hours. Holy schnikes, this is a good book.
pickEvery bit as great as I'd always heard it was. I try never to judge older speculative fiction by how closely its predictions mirror real life; so long as the writing is good and the world that's depicted feels real and makes sense internally, that's all that matters. That said, it's impossible not to marvel at how accurately Butler foresaw our current situation (or tremble at what's still to come, if things continue this way).
