A Blood Sucking Vampire with No Identity: A Review of “Fledgling” by Octavia E. Butler

By Alexandra Blockton
ablockton@lc.edu

Imagine waking in the middle of nowhere, uncertain of your surroundings or even your own identity, in the middle of struggling to gain consciousness after an outrageous attack. That is what happened to a young-looking girl by the name of Shori. While reading this novel, “Fledgling” by Octavia E. Butler I learned she is actually a  53-year-old vampire,and  her looks make her appear to be younger. This book had me terrified while reading trying to learn exactly how Shori got where she was at.

I never understood exactly why she acted the way she did when Mr. Wright only pulled over along the side of the road to help her. It was very disturbing and annoying to me. That Shori could not figure out exactly who her family members were.

I don’t think Shori really knew who she was, after observing her actions.  The more chapters I began to read, the more this book started to pull together for me to understand. In my opinion, Mr. Hamlin seems to be a guy with good intentions but his age made a huge difference between the two of them. Because Shori didn’t look her age and he looked his age. Sadly, she looked very young and he looked way older.

Furthermore, it shocked me to the point where I had to take a break from reading when I got to the part where she was trying to refuse help on being able to find out further informational facts about exactly who she was and where she had come from.  I really thought Wright was weird for wanting to keep such a young girl inside his cabin. Yet, she was actually 53-years-old.

It doesn’t matter how hungry I may ever get as being a human being, I could never imagine sucking pure blood from someone’s neck. Let alone a pure stranger that I’m not even sure if he has diseases like hepatitis or HIV/AIDS. Just to cure my hunger! He offers Shori food,  but she insists on sucking blood from his neck to cure her hunger. I thought this was so disgusting and very odd. Come to find out, Wright is delighted to have Shori sucking blood from his neck. He loves the way it makes him feel and would often beg her to suck blood from his neck while having sexual encounters with her. She sucks so much blood from him and decides to give him a break by going to others’ to get blood. Personally, the joy Mr. Wright  received from having his neck sucked really made me disgusted with him throughout the book as well as the others who had their blood sucked on.

This book here will take your  imagination on a serious roller coaster ride! But you have to know when to take breaks from reading because it is very good and has a horror part to it. If you are not up for scary books you probably won’t enjoy reading it at all whatsoever.

Overall, you have to be an open-minded individual to read this book. There are some very crazy, weird and scary parts in the book, that will get your full attention and have you reading for more. I must say if you read this book, please read at your own risk!

 

About Alexandra Blockton

Alexandra is pursuing an Associate Degree in general studies as a Transfer Student. After Fall 2023, she will transfer to a 4-year university to major in Psychology.
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