This is not a bad book but I wish I could cleanse my brain of it.
Definitely there should have been TW at the beginning about sexual violence, and child horrific abuse ON PAGE. I am not well after reading what was going on in the car family compound. Neither after understanding how much rape is in this book.
Octavia E. Butler had a thing for writing and favoring steady people reacting calmly to terrible situations. As in other of her works it had been a source of comfort, that in this one I longed for one character screaming and panicking. That would be normal, something understandable. That would give me comfort.
Here the calm of young girls giving themselves to adult men left and right, women compelled to get pregnant, it horrified me to no end. No amount of equalizing would convince me there is any fairness between men and women in this scenario.
I don't think it was emphasized enough and Octavia E. Butler wrote this one with a heavy dose of internalized misogyny. I don't blame her for it, considering the time this book was written, nevertheless, I think it has to be said.