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Hannah's Reviews > Parable of the Sower
Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)
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Parable of the Sower?
More like "Parable of the RAPEYRAPERAPERAPE!" What Gospel is this again? Where exactly is the good news? "A rapist scattered rape on a rapescape, and some rapes caused unending trauma, and other rapes caused unending despair, but still other rapes created Strong Female Protagonists, and they would never let any man take Advantage of Them Again."
Mindnumbingly stupid and insulting to actual real assault victims everywhere.
I stopped reading 40 pages in.
Hooray, another "gritty urban fantasy," in which sexual assault serves as the gritty grit backdrop in the generic apocalyptic wasteland LA. Teh realism! Teh schock valyue! O look, a murdered corpse! O look, a naked rape victim! O look, now there's another rape victim! O look, a 7 year-old naked rape victim! O, remember my old lady neighbor, who was raped? RAPE! RAPE RAPE RAPE! No actual rapists are in sight, just their traumatized victims. Are you filled with horror yet? Are you properly despairing? Maybe I should describe some more, just in case you aren't! This is in no way exploitative or insensitive, by the way. Trust me, I should know, because I am a vulnerable teenage narrator. You will probably go through this whole book fearing for me, which is I guess the point of all this atmosphere of sexual threat. Of course we can't stop to help, EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE ARMED GUARDS WITH GUNS, because we might get attacked too, but we will still bicycle through this hellscape so I can explain it all to you in between my halfbaked religious views.
Ugh.
Just writing this review is turning my stomach.
This book obviously did too, in case you hadn't noticed.
There are not enough synonyms of "dreck" to adequately capture my response.
More like "Parable of the RAPEYRAPERAPERAPE!" What Gospel is this again? Where exactly is the good news? "A rapist scattered rape on a rapescape, and some rapes caused unending trauma, and other rapes caused unending despair, but still other rapes created Strong Female Protagonists, and they would never let any man take Advantage of Them Again."
Mindnumbingly stupid and insulting to actual real assault victims everywhere.
I stopped reading 40 pages in.
Hooray, another "gritty urban fantasy," in which sexual assault serves as the gritty grit backdrop in the generic apocalyptic wasteland LA. Teh realism! Teh schock valyue! O look, a murdered corpse! O look, a naked rape victim! O look, now there's another rape victim! O look, a 7 year-old naked rape victim! O, remember my old lady neighbor, who was raped? RAPE! RAPE RAPE RAPE! No actual rapists are in sight, just their traumatized victims. Are you filled with horror yet? Are you properly despairing? Maybe I should describe some more, just in case you aren't! This is in no way exploitative or insensitive, by the way. Trust me, I should know, because I am a vulnerable teenage narrator. You will probably go through this whole book fearing for me, which is I guess the point of all this atmosphere of sexual threat. Of course we can't stop to help, EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE ARMED GUARDS WITH GUNS, because we might get attacked too, but we will still bicycle through this hellscape so I can explain it all to you in between my halfbaked religious views.
Ugh.
Just writing this review is turning my stomach.
This book obviously did too, in case you hadn't noticed.
There are not enough synonyms of "dreck" to adequately capture my response.
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Finished Reading
April 5, 2013
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Amanda
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rated it 3 stars
Apr 15, 2013 09:41AM
Why is there no "like" button? I haven't read the book, and have nothing of importance to contribute, but I really enjoyed your review.
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I think the hours I spend reading, analyzing, and critiquing technical science articles for work are intensifying my emotional responses to novels.I never used to stop reading books, but now I do it fairly frequently.
I don't have as good a reason for it as you, but I'm starting to give up on books for the first time in my life, too. I don't have the patience to spend my time reading something that isn't stimulating or enchanting anymore. Struggling through and making it isn't enough of an accomplishment.
I'm about 50 pages from the end and while I have not had as strong a reaction as you, something dawned on me about a third of the way through. I think, because I could have missed this, all the rape victims are women. In such a society filled with the scary unfeeling drug addicts that seemed odd. There is a section where one of Lauren's brothers goes outside the community and when he makes it back to their house he is only wearing his underpants. And it says he had to confess that he stole a key and left and he had to tell everything the five thugs did to him but it never states what they did beyond beating him and stealing from him. Maybe it is a first person narrator and she didn't want to state that about her brother because it felt implied to me. I'll bring it up at book club to see if anyone else had thoughts about this.
Lol this review is hilarious! Because of your writing and because it's true...
@ Sarah: The incident with Lauren's brother struck me too. It made no sense to me why she wouldn't have referred to him being raped (if he was, and the underpants detail seems like a huge clue) since she didn't much like him anyway. Why would she be selective with the details? Eh, the book was a snooze for me for the 50% I read of it.
Refreshing review. I laughed. That's good.
I wish goodreads participants wouldn't rate books they did not complete. While I sympathize deeply w/ any victims of sexual assault, it is possible here to write a review for a book without giving it a numerical star rating. It skews the average with an incomplete picture of the entire narrative. Again, my heart goes out, and feel free to bring the hate, but just sayin'
7 years later, I had to read this book for a bookclub, and I left a review very similar to yours.I couldn't read more than 10%. I hear you.
I was mad as hell reading it, and nothing in the book could redeem the casual way rape is talked about.
I hope you get to decide how the collapse of society goes. It’s hard to imagine total and systemic collapse without violence and sexual assault. You have a rosy outlook of the fall of democracy.
Hard to disagree with Sam Lilienthal+1
Amanda wrote: "Why is there no "like" button? I haven't read the book, and have nothing of importance to contribute, but I really enjoyed your review."Same .
I got a copy for Christmas 2022 , so I'll see if I become offended with the text as you when I read it .
Elodie wrote: "7 years later, I had to read this book for a bookclub, and I left a review very similar to yours.I couldn't read more than 10%. I hear you.
I was mad as hell reading it, and nothing in the book c..."
That's the way I felt about A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN . It was
just too much damn suffering for me to handle . DNF
I haven't read this one yet .
"... insulting to actual real assault victims everywhere."Yes, exactly. It's possible you and I bailed around the same spot.
You must not understand what a dystopian novel is, and maybe should check out A Handmaids Tail, and come back to read this book again. There was nothing to suggest that this book was going to talk about things all pretty and apologetic, when there was nothing in this world to apologize for, since the police, laws, & accountability don’t exist. Way to miss the point.
