Blood child by octavia e. Butler
You’re just going to feel a slight pinch.
My last night of childhood began with a visit home. T’Gatoi’s sister had given us two sterile eggs. T’Gatoi gave one to my mother, brother, and sisters. She
insisted that I eat the other one alone. It didn’t matter. There was still enough to leave everyone feeling good. Almost everyone. My mother wouldn’t take any. She sat, watching everyone drifting and dreaming without her. Most of the time she watched me. I lay against T’Gatoi’s long, velvet underside, sipping from my egg now and then, wondering why my mother denied herself such a harmless pleasure. Less of her hair would be gray if she indulged now and then. The eggs prolonged life, prolonged vigor.
Butler, Octavia E. Bloodchild and Other Stories. Seven Stories Press, 4 Jan. 2011.
Why we loved it
OcTa.Via—What Have You Done to Us?
Let’s just say it: Octavia Butler is a freaking genius.
No surprise we tumbled headfirst into this story and never quite crawled back out. Butler’s prose doesn’t just describe—it pulses. Every sentence thrums with a raw, electric energy, dragging you through the narrative like a current. And that birthing scene? A masterclass in visceral storytelling. It’s not just written; it’s branded into the backs of our eyelids, a flickering afterimage we’ll carry for years. And you know what? We wouldn’t have it any other way. Some stories entertain. Butler’s scar.
But here’s the question that won’t let us go: Can this ever be love when the scales are so brutally unbalanced? The story dangles the possibility like forbidden fruit—glistening, tantalizing, but with something darker lurking beneath the skin. Is it affection, or just survival wearing love’s face? Butler doesn’t hand us answers. She hands us a knife and lets us carve them out ourselves.
We’re obsessed. We’re ruined. We’re here for it.
Let us know what you think in the comments below!