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I think it makes sense to review Parable of the Talents along side Parable of the Sower, especially since Butler says she originally intended them as a single book.

That said, I really enjoyed these. I really think that women authors are far better equipped to write certain genres and topics. One of those is the horrors of life in a dystopian world. The key thing is that they seem better equipped to discuss the trauma and emotional impact of violence without fetishizing it. It makes everything flow better and focuses on the right things.

These books were very engaging and I found myself quickly engrossed. The journal style was reminiscent of The Martian and it makes me wonder if there’s something about that format that I’m drawn to. My only complaint with it is that I often found myself flipping back to find out how much time had passed between entries as I read.

I found a lot of her commentary on society and social movements depressingly prophetic and I think that makes this an important set of books for the current moment. I do wish Butler had had a chance to continue this story before she died because in some ways it left me unsatisfied and like certain things were pending. That said, it’s can be refreshing to face that realism because things don’t always get wrapped up with a nice little bow.

I don’t know that it makes sense to recommend these books from the perspective of whether I liked them. I did. I thought they were amazing. But my feeling on it doesn’t really mean anything because I think these books stand on their own so very independent of me. It’s almost like they weren’t written for the reader, but for the author. That may just be an effect of reading fiction presented as someone’s personal journal, but either way I really appreciated getting to know the author through it.