Parable of the Sower

Parable

Content Ratings

Mild Romance

Lauren develops a romantic partnership during the northward journey; the relationship is emotionally meaningful and physical intimacy is implied rather than explicitly depicted.

Intense Themes

The novel depicts societal collapse driven by climate change, economic inequality, and political failure; Lauren witnesses repeated trauma including mass death, sexual violence, and the destruction of every community she builds.

High Violence

Lauren's neighborhood is burned and many community members killed; the road north is punctuated by gang violence, murder, rape, and cannibalism referenced in her journals; violence is pervasive, realistic, and emotionally devastating.

Synopsis

In a collapsing near-future America of drought, corporate towns, and violent gangs, eighteen-year-old Lauren Olaminaâ€”who has hyperempathy, feeling others' pain as her ownâ€”survives the destruction of her community and leads a small band of survivors north, beginning to formulate a new philosophy she calls Earthseed. Written as Lauren's journals, the novel is a prescient and shattering portrait of American social collapse. One of the most important dystopian novels of the twentieth century.