A review by ceallaighsbooks
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“If you’re right about what you’ve remembered so far, you’re not human,” he said.
“What if I’m not?” I asked. “What would that mean?”

TITLE—Fledgling
AUTHOR—Octavia Butler
PUBLISHED—2005

GENRE—sci-fi / vampire fantasy / speculative fiction
SETTING—the Northwest, an intentionally unspecified timeline
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—vampire legend & lore reimagining, love, polyamory, racism & white-/Ina- supremacy, justice, community, Black power

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
BONUS ELEMENT/S—A totally original take on vampire lore and vampire worldbuilding that was so deeply philosophically explored that I was completely hooked! Devastated beyond words that we’ll never get the second and third books. 🥺😞
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️—“That wasn’t the way I should have felt, but it was the way I did feel.”

“Ask me questions when you want to know things. Tell me whatever you believe I should know. Complain whenever you want to complain. But don’t talk to other people when you mean your words for me, and speak the truth.”

The Ina, not exactly vampires, but they are “long-lived blood-drinkers” who have traditionally not been able to be exposed to sunlight or to even be awake and active during daylight hours, are Butler’s unique conception of the vampire legend. With niche genre stories—especially ones about vampires that can so easily feel cliche or redundant—I always appreciate a thorough reimagining of the accepted or usual tropes, especially when they explore deeper themes and philosophical topics and that is exactly what Butler does here in Fledgling and was what made this such a successful read for me.

My favorite thing about this book was the main character of Shori whose journey through the book from self-(re-)discovery to (found)family leader & protector, to seeker of justice was phenomenally done. I have never read an author manage a character so that they simultaneously seem so good and heroic while still having flaws that they must learn to acknowledge and overcome without *any* of it feeling forced in the slightest. I can’t say more without bein spoilery but I will say that I think the story’s overall pacing was actually a mirror to the nature of Shori’s character—her inner calmness combined with a potential for serious and sudden violence. Shori is probably one of my new alltime favorite characters.

Another of my favorite explorations was the one on the parallels between the nature of the relationships between the Ina and their symbionts and the nature of love between humans. I’m thinking specifically of a scene early on where
the Ina MC, Shori, gives her new symbiont, Wright, the option to leave, but neither of them want that, but they’re not sure why, not sure if their choice is truly freely made or if they’re compelled—Shori by her need for Wright’s blood, Wright by the compulsion in his blood to obey Shori
—which kind of does feel like love in some ways. There’s that element of “I really don’t know deep down why I love this person but I do and I would rather die than leave them” sort of thing. Which also feels very vampiric too in a way…. It’s interesting. Like how could you know if your choice is freely made, and more importantly, how much does that really matter to you in the end? There is also a really effortless demonstration of the nature of queer love and polyamory among not just the Ina but their human symbionts as well that I thought was very important and really well done. Wish there had been something explored vis-a-vis non-allosexual love but… 🤷🏻‍♀️

I also enjoyed the way the justice system of the Ina was structured and functioned, the way the Ina could distinguish between a lie and the truth, and how racism was present among even a non-human species that traditionally presented as white humans and what that meant for the desire of some of the Ina to find a way to develop melanin in their offspring to potentially make them able to function in daylight. I also loved how the Ina communities were structured around female Ina and male Ina family groups and why, and how the female Ina were considered much more powerful and more dangerous than the men. Even the way Butler described the various different types of Ina community structures with the self-sufficiency of most of the communities but with an intention not to be fully isolated (except for the few groups that were but that was set up as a specific manifestation of those particular groups’ misguided values). I think there was probably a lot more, too, subtly layered in here and there and I definitely have been wanting to go back and reread certain parts to explore more about Butler’s worldbuilding. This would make such a great bookclub pick because of all the themes and elements that you could just discuss for hours!

“It was painful to listen to them. I wanted to scream at them. How could they blind all their senses so selectively? And how could they see me as so impaired? Maybe they needed to see me that way. Maybe it helped them deal with their conscience.”

I saw a few parallels to other modern reconceptions of the vampire legend such as Anne Rice’s and Deborah Harkness’s but neither of those authors (imo) did the philosophical explorations that Butler did for her characters and her worldbuilding (though after Butler, I would say that Harkness’s books get the closest to what Butler was trying to do).

Final note: The pedophilia
-that-wasn’t-really-technically-pedophilia-even-though-it-absolutely-felt-like-it-was…. 😬 I’m not going to lie I was about to dnf after that scene which is like less than 50 pages into the book 😬 BUT then I went back and read the introduction by Nisi Shawl—which I had been trying to save to read until after I finished the book—as well as some reviews online and decided that it would be worth trying to finish the book anyway and I am happy to report that that was basically the only instance of that feeling in the entire book and by the end there is actually a reason (a good reason? I think maybe, actually, but other readers may feel differently)
for why Butler made that choice. I will say though that the feeling throughout the book is one that is very allosexual-normative, which is why I felt a bit of that Anne-Rice-y-ness was present in the story. 🙈🙃

“What do vampires want?” “They want to go out into the sunlight.” — from the Introduction, by Nisi Shawl

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

TW // blood, violence, animal death, pedophilia, graphic sexual content (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—
  • The Gilda Stories, by Jewelle Gomez
  • Anne Rice 😬
  • A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness
  • Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
  • What We Do In the Shadows (2014 film, 2019 tv series)
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