Alex Utopia/Dystopia

The society in Parable is vastly different from the ones we saw in BNW and 1984. In the other two ones we read, the societies were highly structured and there was a more direct link between the oppression from the top of the society down upon the rest of the people. However, in Parable the society feels more anarchistic. Where there was an obvious top-down control of the people in the other books, in Parable everyone is essentially on their own. Stealing and arson is rampant in the area and the police are equally motivated by the same greed and are ineffective.  It suffers from the opposite extreme. Rather than extreme totalitarian control, Parable suffers from a societal breakdown.  Along the same lines, you look at technology, which nearly all of the elements we've discussed this year stem from. Again, Parable's world is in decay. There is little to no technology around because of the vast amount of poor people in neighborhoods, and even poorer people making long, often hope...

 Well, we got the death that we wanted. Jill being the sacrificial lamb of the story wasn't all that surprising, but in standard fashion for the book, the way that it happened was unexpected. Rather than her death being due to incompetence or inexperience in the wild, Jill dies saving the little girl from the pyromaniacs. That was interesting, however, it felt a little detached from the way the story has gone. The story has had a motto of "you can't be a hero," yet Jill's death goes against that. All the previous deaths have either been due to the harsh conditions on the move, or the destruction of the neighborhood. It just all felt a bit off. I'm kind of surprised we never took Bankole's family into consideration. Regardless of the result, they were going to come into play somehow. They were either going to be surprised and confused (maybe resistant), which would've provided an interesting storyline as well, or were going to be dead.   For the most pa...

 We've already had a discussion on who might/should die first, but with 3 chapters left there is still a lot to be resolved and not much time. With Lauren's discussion with Bankole there's some clarity about what the plan is for their future. He's got land, and Lauren is trying to get him to commit to Earthseed and there seems to be a compromise on starting on his land. Sure, this seems like a good plan for the future, but if there's anything that we've learned so far it is that nothing goes as planned. This probably is the least likely future to happen. It feels like someone is going to die, maybe Bankole since he has "value" to the group, so to speak, with his land. This story has been all about Lauren's loss, and subsequent enlightenment with Earthseed. It would be fitting if Bankole is the one to die. There just seems to be so much ground to cover for them and such little time. I know there's a sequel, but there has to be some sort of concl...