Rating: 
Summary: Refreshing, Insightful, and Captivating!
Review: A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of hearing Ms. Butler speak at Hampton University, where I am a student, as the culminating event of a campus-wide annual book reading. I had not had a chance to read the book yet, but I was delighted to have the opportunity to have her sign it. After hearing her speak, I could not wait to begin it. It exceeded all my expectations. Never have I read a book that moved me so. For three days, I literally could not put it down. And when I was not reading it, I was thinking (and dreaming) about the characters: Dana, Rufus, Alice. I was especially captivated by the depths and contours of Dana and Rufus's relationship; how they could hate, love, and need each other all at the same time. And how intricate and complex the master-slave relationship could be, especially when it involved a master and his slave mistress. I was both touched and intruigued by Rufus's strong love for Dana and Alice, and his equally strong need to control them. Kindred is definitely a mind-opener, and for the first time, I can understand how easily people can be made slaves. I have a new favorite book, and a new favorite author!
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, but don't read the introduction first.
Review: As a long time reader of science fiction and fantasy, I found this book to be a refreshing addition to the genre. The only factor which influences its inclusion into that classification is time travel. Otherwise, it is a fascinating journey into historical and psychological aspects of slavery in the US. The introduction almost spoiled the book before I ever read the first page however, so I would recommend skipping that until later.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I have ever read!
Review: I was introduced to Kindred by one of my college instructors; to give you an idea of how moving the sample was: half of the class took it upon themselves to read it after the semester was over! This book was brilliantly written, and the the choice and handling of subject matter was phenomenal. I look forward to reading many more works by Ms. Butler.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating!
Review: Our bookclub (Read Sisters Read) read this book for our October meeting ... almost all of us rated it a 1 (on a 1(hi) to 4(lo) scale). Dana's adventures between the two centuries, and her own personal struggles to ensure her continued survival in this century and the one before, were captivating! There was much discussion about the symbolic meaning of the loss of her limb. Most members agreed that they were going to go read "Wild Seed" next!
Rating:
Summary: Tamika-Ms. Butler is a woman before her time!
Review: I enjoyed this book so thoroughly that I recommended it to all of my familiy and friends.
Octavia Butler has great imagination and spirituality. Dana's repeated attempts to save a man's life who she both loathed and loved shows the strength and character of many African- American females. The other side of the story shows a love and bond so strong that it crosses all boundaries. Ms. Butler is definitly one of a kind!! Peace and Blessings!
Rating:
Summary: Be prepared to go back in time!!!
Review: Kindred is a wonderfully well written book, a book in which I was not prepared for. Kindred entails Sci-fic which is what
Octavia Butler usually writes. Although, I am not a Sci-fic fan I feel that this book is great. However, be prepared to be taken for a ride back into time...a time when blacks were treated as property and when whites owned them, yes slavery. The two main characters has to face the harsh realities of that time period. They also have to face something else that is essential for their very existance and to find out just what that is... you will
have to read the book to find out. I truly enjoyed this book and was taken by surprise by its content...in essence it is hard to put this book down!!! :-) ENJOY!!!
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling, I read it in one day!
Review: As, I stated above, this book is thrilling! I couldn't put it down.
I am an inspiring author and this book put more fuel into my fire. I bought the
book because it was written by an African American female. That weekend, I went to the bookstore and bought every Octavia Butler book I saw. I am anxiously awaiting more
work from this talented author.
K. Evans
Rating:
Summary: Kindred is moving.
Review: Kindred, by Octavia Butler, is moving and eye opening. Butler weaves a present day story with one of the past. She also uses an inter-racial couple as her guides through these two very different worlds which provides an oppertunity for contrast between the treatment of "white" and "black". It is also an incredible comment upon "the body" and how we visualized black bodies in society. I would reccomend that this book is read with the idea of "the body" in mind
Rating:
Summary: It doesn't quite manage to take its readers back in time.
Review: Octavia Butler's "Kindred" is both startlingly interesting, and a little contrived. It's a quick read, and well worth the weekend it takes to finish. However, it is not really a book of inexhaustible depth. Just a good (if harrowing) little novella, that makes its not-so-subtle point by trying to get the reader to experience the past as a modern time traveler would. Sometimes called a science fiction novel, the book's one "sci-fi" trope---time travel---is used simply to place a modern character in a historical setting. I would predict that science fiction devotees would not find that part of the novel at all impressive. Inexplicably, the novel's protagonist (a 20th century black woman, named Dana) is transported to ante bellum Maryland, where on a slave plantation, she meets (and repeatedly saves) her great-great-grandfather. The twist: this particular grandfather was slave-master to her great-great grandmother. As the novel progresses, Dana realizes her goal is to help ensure their fertile coupling... and her own future. But climbing this branch of the family tree won't be easy, given that she must experience all the horrors of slavery in order to make that happen. Hence the double entendre which is the basis of the title (Kindred = "kin dread"). Along the way, the reader has the opportunity to watch as Rufus Weylin grows up from careless little boy to crass slave-holding plantation owner. Back and forth Dana travels between her familiar modern-day life as a young writer, and the dreary hell of a southern plantation. When Rufus' life is in danger, she comes to him. When she feels her own is in danger, she returns... but always with reminders of this horrific past scarred into her body. Butler tries to present her reader with something like the grand tour of the old south... a Colonial Williamsburg of the slave plantation, but with none of the predictable horrors expunged. Rapes, whippings, disease, and the sale of human slaves (often done to intentionally divide families) bluntly fills up the bulk of the book. But the real pathos of the book is the effect all this has on four major characters: Dana, Rufus, Dana's husband Kevin (who is white), and Alice. Alice is a free woman who is taken into bondage by the Weylins after she tries to help her lover (a slave) escape. Dana's quest is to ensure that Alice and Rufus produce a healthy offspring... thus ensuring her own lineage and future life. That's not going to be easy, given the fact that Rufus is a repulsive lout whom Alice understandably despises. Reading "Kindred", I couldn't help but feeling that the novel was somewhat contrived. First, there are the repeated attempts to remind the reader of famous black Americans of the period (Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner), making the book at least partly a vehicle for a PBS-like history lesson. Secondly, its attempt to present the customs of the era is not really entirely precise. It focuses too much on those parts of the past that its liberal-minded audience would find most uncomfortable: mostly, the attitudes of slave-holding whites' towards this proud, literate protagonist, but also the complex relationship between field hands and house slaves. Where it tries to recreate the mundane details of 19th century life---say, medicine, language, cooking, farm life, religion or education----the book comes across as tepid at best, and misleading at worst. Then, of course, there are the very unusual hopeful notes. That Dana eventually convinces Rufus to allow her to school the slave children seems an utterly modern contrivance. Skeptical readers will wonder how Dana, a pants-wearning, back-talking feminist, who is not only the wife of a white man, but also has the peculiar habit of vanishing into thin air, is not simply killed outright by the semi-literate, superstitious, and violent plantation owners. Instead, she becomes their trusted servant, privy to their most innermost secrets. Go figure. Still, it's a good little page-turner... the kind of breezy read that keeps the impatient interested in what will happen next. The book would be an excellent vehicle for a high school class studying African American history or literature. But for real depth and historical imagination, I would recommend Toni Morrison's "Beloved" or Shirley Ann William's "Dessa Rose," or even William Styron's "The Confessions of Nat Turner," all of which are perpetually interesting and challenging in a way that "Kindred" simply isn't. 3 and 1/2 stars (rounded up)
Rating:
Summary: OUTSTANDING
Review: Book Review by C. Douglas Baker
KINDRED is one of those rare novels that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let you go until the very end. From the first sentence, Butler's simple, straightforward prose moves the story quickly making it nearly impossible for the reader to put down.
Dana, a black woman living in Los Angeles in 1976, is inexplicably transported to 1815 to save the life of a small, red-haired boy on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It turns out this small boy, Rufus, is one of her white slave owning ancestors, who she knows very little about. Dana continues to be called into the past to save Rufus, and frequently stays long periods of time in the slave owning South. The only way she can get back to 1976 is to be in a life threatening situation. During her stays in the past she is forced to assume the role of a slave to survive. She is whipped. She is beaten. She is nearly raped, twice. She is forced to watch whippings and families being broken up. She learns to enjoy hard work as an escape from the other horrors of slave life. And she watches as a fairly unassuming small son of a plantation owner grows up to be a cruel, capricious, hot-tempered slave owner in his own right. And to be her great-grandfather many generations removed.
KINDRED is about slavery and the scars it has inflicted on American society. There are really three key factors Butler focuses on that reveal the ability of the South to institutionalize slavery. First there is the physical abuse. The constant work, especially the physically exhausting work of a field hand, kept slaves too tired to run or become insolent. Being ever on the verge of a lash or two for minor offenses kept slaves working to avoid punishment. Being beaten nearly to death after escape attempts made a slave reluctant to try again; especially if this is coupled with the abuse of the slave's family. Then there is the psychological abuse. The continual threat of being beaten or watching others be beaten broke the spirits of those in bondage. The worst punishment was sometimes having to watch a family member abused for your transgression. Encouraging slaves to marry and have children also deadened their desire to escape. Families made the slave settle down, gave him or her something to protect and care for. The selling off of a few family members had a damping effect on a slave's spirit. A most poignant example is the slave Sarah, the primary house slave; "Weylin had sold only three of her children, left her one to live for and protect". She rarely questioned slavery, thought little of freedom, because "she had lost all she could stand to lose". The risk of losing the one daughter she had left was too great. Slaves that escaped had to be willing to risk not only their own life but possibly the lives of their family.
The physical and psychological abuse imposed on the slave made it so much easier to accept one's lot in life and avoid the unpleasantries that recalcitrance entailed. The ease with which Dana falls into the routines of everyday life as a slave shocks her. Work is a refuge from the other toils of slave life and the patterns become the norm. There is even an ambiguous feeling toward the slave owner. The slave owner is hated for the physical and psychological abuse imposed on the slave. But at the same time the slave loved the owner in a familial sense, even though the slave owner was seldom worthy of this. Thus slavery became for many the accepted norm of life, even if this acceptance was a tenuous and unhappy one at best. This acceptance was generational. Dana at one point espies children playing at selling each other on the auction block and haggling over price.
Many times throughout history sheer terror has been used to subdue a population and sap it of its strength. One only has to look at the Tsar's of Russia like Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Stalin to realize the extent to which terror can be used to subjugate a people. The Southern aristocracy of the United States practiced a similar terror till 1864 and beyond.
There is much historical evidence for the Butler's depiction of slavery and its effects. KINDRED is patterned after the slave narratives becoming more widely read today. These include Frederick Douglass' NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE and Harriet A. Jacobs INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL. Butler could have depicted the beatings and physical abuse in more graphic detail to have a greater impact on the reader.
Slavery even has its effects in 1976. The scars Dana brings back to 1976 are symbolic of the scars slavery has left on contemporary society. Some will heal with time. Some can never heal. Others will scab over and be just below the surface. But they are all there. But in another sense healing has taken place. Dana is married to a white man, Kevin, who is transported to 1815 with her once. While there they both fall easily into the pattern or act of slave owner and slave concubine, roles they must assume to survive. The ease with which they fall into these roles brings about a greater consciousness of their ethnicity. But through this relationship Butler leaves the reader with hope. Dana's love for Kevin is what really pulls her through the most harrowing terrors she faces and in the end gives her the strength to survive this horrible test.
KINDRED is written at the young adult level and moves along at a brisk pace. I highly recommend it for teenagers and adults.
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