An eery book to read: Written decades ago, it shows us a dystopian future starting in July 2024 where climate change and political turmoil have left the US, and much of the world, with civilization crumbling, similar yet different from what we know today.

Pushing politics-induced anxiety aside, I expected an exciting novel with social commentary. What I got was... a novel with social commentary.

The first half seemed like a near-endless introduction to me - of the protagonist, her family, and her community. This part was definitely too long for my taste - a lot of characters are introduced, but never brought up again. The bits of information about the outside world seem detached and irrelevant to a certain extent.

The protagonist has a supernatural ability that only comes up after a while, and is described inconsistently: Sometimes her heightened sense of empathy for others' emotions and pain overwhelms and nearly cripples her; sometimes it doesn't come up for dozens of pages although people around her are feeling, well, lots of things. This jerked me out of the immersion of the story, and left me more confused than anything.

Our protagonist also sets her mind on founding a new religion, and spends considerable time thinking/writing about it, and discussing it with others. I didn't find this aspect of the story interesting at all.

All these negative aspects aside, the plot, especially in the second half, is interesting enough: I kept reading to find out what would be next. At least some characters are likeable AND interesting. It is obvious that this novel is the first part of an unfinished trilogy -- lots of things are brought up, but not resolved (yet).

Octavia E. Butler's writing is just great - every chapter, every scene drew me right in, and I painfully felt as if I was there, in crumbling California, with the cast of characters.

Overall, the good and the bad of this book made me end up leaving a mediocre rating of three stars. I'm not sure I'll read the second book, [b:Parable of the Talents|60932|Parable of the Talents (Earthseed, #2)|Octavia E. Butler|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1170553715l/60932.SY75.jpg|249012]: I'm afraid the religious themes will only grow, plus there is no third part to conclude the series because Butler never wrote it.