A Good Morning America 2021 Top Summer Read PickThe visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and … abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.
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Octavia Butler is, without a doubt, my favorite author, and Kindred was the first of her books I read. It is a fantasy/science fiction story that reads like a historical novel (which it also is), about an African American woman, married to a white man, who suddenly – and for no known reason – is suddenly transported back in time to the antebellum south, where one of her ancestors’ (the young son of a white, slave-owning plantation owner) life is at risk. She saves him, but only when she believes her own life is at imminent risk is she transported back to her time. This story – as do all Butler’s books – explores the complex power dynamics between people in various kinds of intimate relationships, in stories so compelling one literally can’t stop reading until reaching the end.
This an interesting book about slavery and time travel. Dana, the modern black woman protagonist, becomes more and more enmeshed in the life of her ancestor, Rufus, a young white boy who grows up in a slave-owning family in ante-bellum Maryland. This happens because of time travel. Dana is thrown backwards in time every time Rufus is in danger. Their’s is an interesting relationship.
Kindred is about race relations, gender, and class, but it doesn’t preach about any of these topics. Butler creates an enthralling story that deals with these issues without getting on a soapbox about them.
loved this book, it showed the racial problems in a very readable way, I recommended this book to my book club
This was my introduction to this author and all I can say is, thank you. Interesting concept, really gets you thinking.
Good book with unsatisfying ending.
This novel changed my way of thinking about the reasons why people sometimes remain in violent relationships.
This one should be a movie, and maybe one day it will be!
Shame she died, she brought a unique perspective to science fiction, worth reading.
It pushed me to consider slavery and the master/slave relationship at a level I had not previously understood. It was disquieting, compelling and demanding.
Love time-travel, and loved this book. Definitely a different twist on time-travel, and slavery/racism.
This is a great read and should be required reading for all