A Book Series I Will Never Forget

There are books that entertain.
There are books that teach.
And then there are books that mark a shift in who you are, in how you think, feel, and see the world.

For me, that book, that series, is Earthseed by Octavia E. Butler.

It came to me during a time when the world was unraveling. COVID had stripped away our routines. The Black Lives Matter movement was erupting with righteous urgency. And in the middle of all that collective chaos, I wanted to read something that would stretch me. Something bigger than escapism. Something grounded in imagination but rooted in truth.

I remember seeing that Well-Read Black Girl was reading Parable of the Sower for their book club. I’d heard of Octavia E. Butler before, but never picked up one of her books. I was curious, ready to expand my reading, ready to explore sci-fi from a Black woman’s lens, ready to be impacted by a voice I had only heard whispers about.

So I grabbed a copy. And I was blown away.

Parable of the Sower isn’t just a dystopian novel. It’s eerily prophetic. The story felt like it was speaking directly to the times we were living in. The uncertainty. The fear. The loss. The survival. The hope. And layered into all of that was a main character so relatable, someone searching for something more, someone who dared to believe in something bigger even as the world burned.

What shook me even more was the setting. It took place in and around Los Angeles, my city. These characters walked and ran and scraped their way through familiar neighborhoods. They moved along highways I’ve driven. They struggled on streets I’ve known. And that hit me differently. It made the fiction feel like it wasn’t fiction at all.

Then I read Parable of the Talents. And if Sower opened my mind, Talents broke my heart, and rebuilt it. I respected the character’s vision, her determination, her obsession, her boldness. Hero or anti-hero, depending on who’s reading, she was committed to the idea that “God is Change.” And at a time in my life where change was all around me,  unsettling and unavoidable, that idea wasn’t just a plot point. It was a spiritual anchor.

Reading Earthseed during the height of a pandemic, in the midst of social reckoning and personal transformation, gave me language and perspective I didn’t know I needed. It tugged at my heartstrings and shook loose a sense of reflection that still sits with me.

I don’t want to spoil the books, because they deserve to be read fresh and full. But I will say this: since that first read, Octavia E. Butler has become one of my favorite authors. I’ve read several of her books now, and I’m constantly in awe. She challenges me. She inspires me. And honestly? She intimidates me, in the best way. Because that’s what a good book, a brilliant writer, is supposed to do.

If you’ve never read Earthseed, let this be your nudge. And if you have, then you already know, some stories never leave you.

They root in you.
They grow in you.
They change you.

Just like Earthseed.