⚠️ cw: r@pe, murd3r, racism, graphic descriptions—please check full list as there are more but these are the main ones!

When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others’ emotions. Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith, and a vision of human destiny.

@bookishswiftiesclub club January read! This book came highly recommended by several of my friends, so I was excited to finally read it. This book was especially haunting in the context of the timeframe that it is set in and what is currently going on in the world; this dystopian future does not feel that far removed from our current reality. There are definitely a lot of dark and brutal moments in this book, but I really appreciated how Lauren held fast to her beliefs and dreamed of a better future for herself and her community. Her Earthseed religion was very interesting as it pulled from several different belief systems. This book does not hold back and its critique of capitalism and climate change, nor does it shy away from the brutalities of living in a post apocalyptic world. This was a fascinating and very deep book, but I definitely recommend looking up contact warnings as the book can definitely be harsh and disturbing.