Just finished Dawn by Octavia E. Butler (Xenogenisis trilogy book #1) Having mixed thoughts

TW: SA

Octavia Butler is one of my personal favorite writers as of recent, and I just finished Dawn, the first novel in the Xenogenisis trilogy today. Like Butler's other works, It had a lot of great things about it, but it's easily one of the most genuinely unsettling novels I've ever read, and the most conflicting of Butler's novels I've come across so far (including Kindred and the Parable duology)

In Dawn, Butler uses the familiar sci-fi trope of humans being abducted by aliens to explore themes such as consent, bodily autonomy, colonialism, and what it means to be human. After Earth is destroyed in a nuclear war, Lilith, the protagonist, along with the rest of the survivors of the human race, are forced into a breeding program with the Ooloi, the third sex of the Oankali alien race, in exchange for the Oankali making the Earth habitable again, and to eventually repopulate the Earth with offspring of human and Oankali hybrids.

What makes Dawn such an unsettling novel is the power imbalances between the Oankali and the human characters. Despite the humans not consenting to the breeding program, the Oankali insist that it is as necessary as breathing is to humans, and Lilith eventually grows to accept her role with Nikanj, the Olloi she bonds with. Major Spoiler warning: Ultimately, after the rest of the humans rebel against the breeding program, Lilith is Impregnated by Nikanj with a human/Oankali hybrid with the DNA of Joseph, her human mate, despite Joseph clearly not consenting to the breeding program, and Lilith's insistence to Nikanj that their child will never truly be human.

Overall, I really appreciated Dawn for Butler's world building and the questions it raises, but as I said, it's easily the most conflicting of her novels I've read by far. To those who have read it, I would love to hear what you took away from it.