The Inky Phoenix | Fledgling
Log in or Sign up
Fledgling
Octavia E. Butler
Nisi Shawl
Save to Your Books
100% of affiliate revenue supports The Inky Phoenix
Fledgling, Octavia Butler’s last novel, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly un-human needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: she is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire.
Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted—and still wants—to destroy her and those she cares for, and how she can save herself.
Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of "otherness" and questions what it means to be truly human.
Show more
Get the Bindery app
Posts about this title from The Inky Phoenix
The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • Jun 18 2025
\ \ In celebration of our June Inky Phoenix book club pick, I curated a list of my favorite vampire reads, both old and new, for Tertulia. AND they're offering 25% off BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL. Just use code INKYPH.\ \ See the list here:\ \ https://tertulia.com/editorial-list/kathryn-budigs-vampy-books-to-sink-your-teeth-into](https://inkyphoenix.binderybooks.com/item/vOuiy7Cr917HztuuxnHM/)
featured on Tertulia PLUS a discount code for Inky members!
9 books
2
Posts about this book from across Bindery
Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • Dec 12 2025
Join for free
🥒 YOU’LL NEVER ESCAPE PICKLE BOOKS!
🥒 YOU’LL NEVER ESCAPE PICKLE BOOKS!
💭 what the heck is a pickle book? thanks for asking! it’s something i made up. pickle books are books that leave you with a sour aftertaste - but in a positive way. those books that stick with you, haunt you a bit, change you for the better, or just really make you think. this is the latest in a long series of pickle book recommendation videos i’ve given.
📚 books mentioned: - Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad - Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler - We Have Reached the End of Our Show by Ali Gordon - How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder by Nina McConigley
👗💄: - jumpsuit is from Hutch, rented from Nuuly - eyeshadow is Lord of the Rings Middle Earth Palette from Glamlite - eyeliner is Epiphany Glow Melt-On from Kaleidos - hair gems are from Hally Hair - (also if you have a question about my makeup or something i’m wearing, most of it is curated in my shopmy!)
thank you to Ali Gordon and Pantheon for the gifted copies!
#picklebooks #picklebookrecs #literaryfiction #fantasybooks #horrorbooks #dystopianbooks #starrysteph #nycinfluencer #diversebookstagram #nycbookstagram #bookstagram @groveatlantic @grandcentralpub @wildlingpress @pantheonbooks @hutch_design @nuuly @kaleidosmakeup @glamlite @hallyhair
4 books
1
Left Unread Books\ \ Michael LaBorn\ \ • Jul 18 2025
Join for free
5 books
11
The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • Jun 18 2025
featured on Tertulia PLUS a discount code for Inky members!
9 books
2
Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • Feb 10 2025
Join for free
weird and haunting books that stick with you
does it shock you that I decided to bring pickle books to the long form stage?
if you were to make up a new category of books, what would it be? (also, welcome to the pickle books club. you're IN IT NOW.)
6 books
1
Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • Feb 9 2025
Join for free
\ \ Upgrade for $5 or login](https://celestial.binderybooks.com/item/RxRUBGqyDi8b2LH5nkFc/)
EXCLUSIVE EARLY ACCESS: pickle book recs!
check out my latest YouTube video 24 hours early! 😱🥒
does it shock you that I decided to bring pickle books to the long form stage?
if you were to make up a new category of books, what would it be? (also, welcome to the pickle books club. you're IN IT NOW.)
6 books
2
Left Unread Books\ \ Michael LaBorn\ \ • Jan 6 2025
Join for free
Writing From The Human Experience
Witnessing violence, while eye-opening, is not enough to really incentivize people to pursue change. They also have to see the humanity of the people experiencing that violence. And that needs to be reflected in our writing.
17 books
16
Left Unread Books\ \ Michael LaBorn\ \ • Dec 19 2024
Join for free
Octavia Butler saw Elon Musk coming, and we need to talk about it!
Let's talk about company towns and how the great Ms Octavia Butler was an oracle for our (being Black people) ancestors.
9 books
13
Left Unread Books\ \ Michael LaBorn\ \ • Nov 9 2024
Join for free
[Book bans are on the rise. And if there is one thing we can count on, it is that a Trump presidency will only make America's problems worse. Everything we know about Project 2025 and their plans for education, race and gender studies, and the continued suppression of any progressive thinking, we can pretty comfortably guess that book banning is going to be on the rise.\ \ And this isn't shocking. Literature/art always plays a part in a people's liberation. Always.\ \ Obviously our hope is that our worst fears won't be realized. But in the now, we need to buckle up under the assumption that they will be. So here are some of the books I think you should get onto your shelf now. I have a list of fiction books that will help you to wrestle with the world as we know it and to dream about what it can be, and a list of non-fiction that will give you practical and actionable ideas about how to prepare to fight for a better world.\ \ FICTION\ \ Parable of the Sower: When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others' emotions. Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith . . . and a startling vision of human destiny.\ **Parable of the Talents: **In 2032, Lauren Olamina has survived the destruction of her home and family, and realized her vision of a peaceful community in northern California based on her newly founded faith, Earthseed. The fledgling community provides refuge for outcasts facing persecution after the election of an ultra-conservative president who vows to "make America great again." In an increasingly divided and dangerous nation, Lauren's subversive colony--a minority religious faction led by a young black woman--becomes a target for President Jarret's reign of terror and oppression. Years later, Asha Vere reads the journals of a mother she never knew, Lauren Olamina. As she searches for answers about her own past, she also struggles to reconcile with the legacy of a mother caught between her duty to her chosen family and her calling to lead humankind into a better future.\ **Kindred: **Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.\ \ Tender is the Flesh: His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing. Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.\ **Fledgling: **Octavia E. Butler's final novel is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly unhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted—and still wants—to destroy her and those she cares for, and how she can save herself.\ \ Broken Earth Trilogy: A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.\ \ NON-FICTION\ \ Let This Radicalize You: Longtime organizers and movement educators Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes examine some of the political lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the convergence of mass protest and mass formations of mutual aid, and consider what this confluence of power can teach us about a future that will require mass acts of care, rescue and defense, in the face of both state violence and environmental disaster.\ **We Grow the World Together: **In We Grow the World Together, abolitionists and organizers Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson bring together a remarkable collection of voices revealing the complex tapestry of ways people are living abolition in their daily lives through parenting and caregiving. Ranging from personal narratives to policy-focused analysis to activist chronicles, these writers highlight how abolition is essential to any kind of parenting justice.\ **Defund: **A collection of illuminating interviews with leading abolitionist organizers and thinkers, reflecting on the uprisings of summer 2020, the rise of #defund, and the work ahead of bridging the divide between reform and abolition.\ \ Unbuild Walls: Unbuild Walls dives into US immigration policy and its relationship to mass incarceration, from the last forty years up to the present, showing how the prison-industrial complex and immigration enforcement are intertwined systems of repression. Incorporating historical and legal analyses, Shah’s personal experience as an organizer, as well as stories of people, campaigns, organizations, and localities that have resisted detention and deportation, Shah assesses the movement’s strategies, challenges, successes, and shortcomings. Featuring a foreword by Amna A. Akbar, Unbuild Walls is an expansive and radical intervention, bridging the gaps between movements for immigrant rights, racial justice, and prison abolition.\ **Freedom is a Constant Struggle: **Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today’s struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.\ **The Will to Change: **Everyone needs to love and be loved—including men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways in which patriarchal culture keeps them from understanding themselves. In The Will to Change, bell hooks provides a compassionate guide for men of all ages and identities to understand how to be in touch with their feelings, and how to express versus repress the emotions that are a fundamental part of who we are.\ \ Hope in the Dark: Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of radicals at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable.\ \ They Were her Property: Bridging women's history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave‑owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South's slave market. Because women typically inherited more slaves than land, enslaved people were often their primary source of wealth. Not only did white women often refuse to cede ownership of their slaves to their husbands, they employed management techniques that were as effective and brutal as those used by slave‑owning men. White women actively participated in the slave market, profited from it, and used it for economic and social empowerment. By examining the economically entangled lives of enslaved people and slave‑owning women, Jones-Rogers presents a narrative that forces us to rethink the economics and social conventions of slaveholding America.\ \ Hood Feminism: Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others?\ \
- If you are accessing this list from somewhere other than Bindery, please also support our efforts to educate and bring change by subscribing. You can do so for free, or by subscribing at a paid tier to help fund our own publishing efforts.\
- If you are already a part of our community, consider upgrading to at least the $5 so that you can take part in the publishing process of more Black and brown books. As you know, our paid subscribers help to fund our publishing efforts and take a more active role in bringing those books to life.\ \ ](https://leftunreadbooks.binderybooks.com/item/iXHFzCEOnmLlJUjqzusK/)
Books you should buy while you still can
We are all concerned that with a second Trump presidency, we are going to be facing a massive rise in book bans. So I have put together a list of books that I think everyone should read in light of the fights ahead of us. Check them out and grab whatever you think will benefit you!
16 books
20
Left Unread Books\ \ Michael LaBorn\ \ • Oct 26 2024
Join for free
\ \ Upgrade for $5 or login](https://leftunreadbooks.binderybooks.com/item/dIt6cS4DKycOkp9cyGNn/)
Fledgling is one of the most uncomfortable books I have ever read. But it was written by Octavia Butler, what did I expect? However, in true Octavia fashion, it also challenged my worldview and made me really wrestle with the fabric of our society. And here are my thoughts. My very long-winded and detailed thoughts, lol! Enjoy! Click the link down below to read my full review!
13 books
3
Left Unread Books\ \ Michael LaBorn\ \ • Oct 24 2024
Join for free
The five most disturbing books I read this year!
I don't know about you, but I have a habit of falling in love with the most disturbing books. And even more troubling... I have made a habit of making sure everyone in my life has read them! So here are the five most disturbing books I read in 2024.
7 books
2
Left Unread Books\ \ Michael LaBorn\ \ • Oct 24 2024
Join for free
Book club meets TOMORROW (10.25) at 7:30 pm CST. I hope to see all of you there. This was a HEAVY book and I NEED to talk about it. So come ready for some big conversations!!!! Info down below.
1 book
1
Written Reveries\ \ Krystal\ \ • Oct 10 2024
Join for free
House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson A Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson Strange Beasts by Susan J. Morris This Ravenous Fate by Haley Dennings Masters of Death by Olivie Blake Blood & Brujas by Mikayla D Hornedo Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco Bride by Ali Hazelwood Immortal Dark bt Tigest Girma Interview with A Vampire Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas Fledgling by Octavia E Butler #vampires #vampirebooks #bookish #bookclub #booktok #bookrecommendations #krystallotuslang #bookreview #bookmail #vampirebookrecommendations @Penguin Random House @Tor Publishing Group @Sourcebooks Fire @Saga Press Books 🛸🧙🏿♀️🔪 @berkleypub @Bindery #Inverted
12 books
Left Unread Books\ \ Michael LaBorn\ \ • Oct 2 2024
Join for free
October Book Club Pick: Fledgling by Octavia Butler
Hey, everyone! Our book club pick for October is Fledgling by Octavia Butler. I have posted some information on the book down below and all of the ways that you can engage! Check it out and read along with us!
1 book
2
Left Unread Books\ \ Michael LaBorn\ \ • Jul 28 2024
Join for free
[SOME OF MY FAVORITE HORROR BOOKS\ \
- **Bad Cree by Jessica Johns: **I don't even know what to say about this book, other than it terrified me to my core! It follows a young Cree woman years after the death of her sister. She begins to have terrifying dreams about their last weekend together, followed by a string of seamingly supernatural occurances that forces her to flee back home to her mother and aunties, who help her uncover the truth of what really happened to her big sister...and what may just happen to her if she isn't careful.\
- **No One's Gonna Take Her Soul Away by Amanda Weaver: **This book follows a Black woman who is murdered and unjustly sent to the seventh level of hell, where she must partner together with a werewolf and a vampire in order to fight her way through all seven levels of hell in order to confront the goddess that condemned her there.\
- **The Getaway by Lamar Giles: **This book was...intense. Not haunting in the way that _Bad CreeI was, _but incredible and terrifying in it's own way. This is probably more of a dystopian book than a horror book, but it shook me and I made the list, so I can include it if I want to. bahahaha! The book follows a young man who works in one of the nations only remaining resorts in a post-apocalyptic world, where natural disaster and war has ravaged most of the known world. As an employee, he must serve the American elite who can afford to vacation there. But when he uncovers a conspiracy happening among the guests, his life and everything he's ever known will be in jeopardy.\ \ NOTABLE MENTIONS THAT I HAVEN'T READ YET\ \
- **Fledgling by Octavia Butler: **If you know who Octavia Butler is, I'm sure you're as excited as I am to read this! Fledgling is often called the world's best vampire book. On the other hand, it is also often called the most haunting vampire story out there. So...yeah... I definitely wanna read this one!\
- **Never Whistle at Night: **This is an indigneous horror anthology that I have been told is PHENOMENAL! I cannot wait to read this! Which is lucky for me, because it is also our bookclub pick for August! So make sure you grab a copy so you can read along with me!\ \ \ \ \ \ ](https://leftunreadbooks.binderybooks.com/item/avfOyYnfOgzWQT3khN5e/)
A few of my favorite horror books!
In honor of reaching 666 subscribers today, here is a list of some of my favorite horror books!
5 books
8
Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • May 3 2024
Join for free
pickle books may not be a real thing, but they are consistently the most effective way to describe my favorite books.
5 books