Book 172 of 2024: Kindred by Octavia Butler

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

I wanted to read this book for quite some time and I’m so glad that I finally did. Many moments of this book were very difficult to get through, as to be expected in any story about slavery. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery but also learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence as her travels to the past become more frequent and for longer amounts of time. The book also explores interracial relationships, as Dana’s marriage to her white husband Kevin is tested when they travel in time together. Dana also develops an interesting relationship with Rufus; he cannot treat her as an equal because in his mind she is nothing but a slave, yet he often turns to her for council and prefers her company over that of other white people. There was some casual ableism in this book (I’m sensitive to use of the R word for people with mental disabilities). Overall, this was a very interesting story about racism, power, and heritage that blurred the line between fantasy and reality.