Fledgling by Octavia Butler

Ha, so remember when Aarti hosted A More Diverse Universe back in November? I signed up and started reading a book for it and then the book became really difficult for me to finish. I ended up finishing it up on New Year's Day--symbolic of my goal to honor all my commitments this year! (or something, I'll spin anything)

Anyway, I did not like this book at all. By the time I did finish I had a strong distaste for it. It's good to know this, though, the book has been on my shelves for years and now it's off and now I've also tried this author I always wanted to try so it's not like all is lost.

So the book starts out with Shori waking up and knowing nothing but as she feeds on raw meat and stuff like that she starts to feel better. But she's completely lost her memory. So she's wandering around on the road and this guy stops to help her but then she realizes she wants to drink his blood and he realizes he wouldn't mind hooking up with her and to be honest that's where the book started to lose me. Because how am I supposed to care about this guy who is attracted to this girl who looks like a child even if she's really 53 years old? I mean ew.

Anyway Shori is a genetically modified vampire and vampires live in clans and feed off symbionts which is what this dude becomes to her. And some other people. They get to live longer and stuff as symbionts--it seems as though the thorny consent issues in vampire feeding are sort of addressed but it's not very satisfactory to be honest. So someone is hunting her family down and she doesn't know who because she barely knows who she is and so the book is the story of that.

It was just...boring. Too much information. Not enough reason to care? Too many things that kind of turned my stomach. I could guess reading Ana's review that maybe the reason I didn't like this book is precisely because it was less about story and more the "parable" the back of the book says it is. Ana liked the book MUCH more than I did by the way!

But like I said, I'm glad I read it. And Aarti I'm sorry it took me so long to post! And I know a lot of people have read this and I'd like to hear what you thought because well it's at least worth talking about?