I recently read Fledgling, by Octavia E. Butler. It’s a book kind of about vampires, but not really about vampires.
The minute I started reading it it engrossed me in a way that hasn’t happened in a while. It’s very compelling writing. It begins with the main character, a young woman, waking up with amnesia, which is amnesia for us, the reader, as well. We find things out slowly and at the same pace as she does. Something bad has happened and she has to figure out what it is and what to do about it.
This isn’t a book about polyamory, but there is a strong polyamory storyline in it. The woman takes on partners and the group of them have to learn to become a family. It’s very beautiful and sensitive. The woman is the matriarch of the family, and is responsible for her partners’ well-being.
Because she is not human – and her partners are – it’s natural, I think, for the reader to identify more closely with her partners. I did. And that led to some interesting feelings. I am a cis man and in real life I am always the… well… dominant one in the relationship? I guess that’d be the way to put it, though my partners might have something to say about that wording. = ) I dunno.
But reading this book I got the chance to identify with a more dependent person, her human partners. I got to feel in some way what it’s like to have someone else set the agenda, someone else find a home, someone else be the protector, etc, etc… it’s a feeling I don’t get very often.
Butler does a really good job in this book exploring the relationship between those with power and those who are more vulnerable, the strong and the less strong. Along with that, she necessarily shows what consent looks like in that dynamic. When someone has power over another, it’s often not as simple as checking the “yes” box.
Like I said, this isn’t a book about polyamory. If you pick this up and the back cover doesn’t interest you then I wouldn’t bother reading it. But if you like sci-fi and think you might enjoy this story, definitely read it. It’s a fresh take on the genre and the writing is outstanding. And, for me, being able to put myself in someone else’s shoes for a while is what makes for great reading.
For anyone else reading this, I thought OP’s suggestion sounded interesting, so I picked it up. In the first few pages, the books makes it explicitly clear that the “young woman” looks about ten years old. Knowing what OP said above, I was pretty uncomfortable with continuing reading it, and I’m not the only one. If you look search online, you’ll see a lot of stuff about this book being pedophilia (example here). I just wanted to inform others before they pick it up as well.