• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Blogs We Heart
  • Nav Social Menu

    • Bloglovin
    • Email
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Books and Sensibility

We're an Open Book

  • Reviews
    • Young Adult Fiction
    • Young Adult Nonfiction
    • Adult Fiction
    • Adult Nonfiction
  • Features
  • Diverse Reads
    • Asian Stories
    • Black Stories
    • Latinx Stories
    • LGBTQIA Stories

Dawn by Octavia Butler

September 24, 2023      Leave a Comment

This book is incredibly strange.

I can’t fathom how Butler conceived any of this. Butler is definitely joining my list of authors who must possess entire worlds inside their minds because this was a wildly imaginative ride.

Centuries after Earth’s destruction Lilith, a young human survivor, awakens on a spaceship manned by highly intelligent humanoid-cephalopod tentacle aliens known as the Oankali. The Oankali have selected Lilith to lead a group of other human survivors on an expedition back to Earth.

The Oankali have an intricate culture and society. They rely on genderless counterparts known as ooloi to aid in scientific endeavors, discoveries, and reproduction. As Lilith embarks on her mission, she forms a bond with the strange aliens. Lilith soon finds herself torn between her duty to humanity and her connection to the Oankali.

There is some strange alien mating stuff in this book and not in the titillating manner of Ice Planet Barbarians. I mean…it was weird. I was so confused. I’m curious what people in the 80’s thought. I’ll have to look up review archives.

I’m sure this book is thought-provoking and poignant, but I was too busy trying to wrap my head around the bizarre twists and decisions the characters made.

Butler was a stunning storyteller. Because even though I had SO MANY QUESTIONS–I was always along for the ride. The books in this series are relatively short so I may have to finish just to see where Butler is going with this.

P.S. Apparently there is a very WHITE-Washed version of this book cover. This looks like it is depicting a scene that happens between two white side characters. It makes no sense for this to have been the cover SMH

Jess

1/2 of the blogging duo at Books and Sensibility, I have been blogging about and reviewing books since 2011.  I read any and every genre, here on the blog  I mostly review  Fantasy, Adult Fiction, and Young Adult with a focus on audiobooks.

Primary Sidebar

Hello !

Welcome! Here you’ll find book reviews, features and a glimpse into the bookish life of two sisters because here–we’re an open book !

Subscribe

We Review Romance

Reviews by Rating

  • ★
  • ★★
  • ★★★
  • ★★★★
  • ★★★★★

Archives

Grab Our Button

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2025 · Wordpress Theme by Hello Yay!