HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN! Mini College Review: Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

Title: Fledgling
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Format: Paperback, 320 pages
Pub. Date: January 2nd 2007
Source: SIU Bookstore


Book Description:

Fledgling, Octavia Butler's new novel after a seven year break, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly inhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted - and still wants - to destroy her and those she cares for and how she can save herself. Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of "otherness" and questions what it means to be truly human.

Review:

★★★

I'd like to preface this review by saying that apparently I'm the one person who hasn't read Butler's book, Kindred so I have no prior experience with this author's writing.

Moving on, this is a book that I had to read in my vampire literature course in college. I had really hopes for it. Theoretically, it's everything I love. Vampires? Good. Science fiction? Good. These two things blended together in Fledgling ? Meh. I didn't feel it.

It's kind of dull. When I think of the word vampire, I think "intensity". Whether it's a horror plot, or a love plot, vampire novels tend to be heavy-handed more than lacking when it comes to plot and characters. I thought for sure this book would be intense, because twisting together science-fiction "how did I get like this" type plot lines with the vampire mythos sounds like a fantastic time. But instead the writing is dry, uninspired.

It's also creepy. Not in the vampiric respect so much as the main character, who has the personality/mind of an adult, is in the body of like a ten year old girl. Sex and romantic interest are involved, and it's creepy. I understand that the mind is not young, but when you're playing this book in the movie theater of your brain while you're reading, it's a little girl doing very not little things with a grown man. Which... I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, ew. On the other hand, vampirism is supposed to be kind of gross, and this is just sort of a twist on the same creepy factor vamps give off. Maybe it's a wash.

Despite my lack of enjoyment in this story, our class was able to cultivate a lot of good discussions from the issues presented in this writing, on topics like what it means to be submissive, sexism, racism, as well as a bunch of comparisons to the other vampire books we read in this course (which included Dracula and Carmilla). There's a lot of good themes that are in here... I just wish it was more interesting so that I wanted to dig deeper into the text.

It's an okay book. I'm glad it's just one and not a series. If you're looking for a tame read with creepy and science fiction undertones, go for it, but I want a little more *pop* in my vampire books.