1. "Wild Seed" by Octavia E. Butler

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I had read one Octavia Butler book before, Kindred, and enjoyed it in a painful sort of way (it is not an easy book to read), so I decided to pick this one up.

Wild Seed, as several other reviews have said (it's a popular one!), is the story of Anyanwu, a shape-shifting, mostly-immortal woman. She is discovered by Doro, a truly immortal man, who jumps between bodies, killing a body's previous owner as he goes. Doro is building a people by finding others with special gifts and abilities, and wants Ayanwu as a "wild seed," someone with whom to breed his people to get children with ever more strong abilities. And what Doro wants, Doro gets. But Ayanwu has her own way of doing things...

This book was a difficult read for me because of how huge the power imbalance between Ayanwu and Doro is. Ayanwu is deeply and insidiously enslaved by Doro, and for the first third of the book, he thwarts her at every turn. Once she marries Doro's son Isaac, though, I found the book much more bearable. Isaac lifted a weight off of me in the same way he lifted one off of Anyanwu, by providing her freedom within her slavery and and a potential for her and Doro to eventually be equals. I absolutely loooooooved the ending. Nothing is completely solved, but Doro needs Ayanwu, and that concession is enough.

I would highly recommend this book. I could not put it down. The ideas in it are original and striking and intimately familiar.