Our book club had a huge fight over whether the main character was actually a hero or not

Last week during our meeting on The Parable of the Sower, half the group said Lauren was a visionary leader and the other half called her selfish for leaving people behind. I ended up getting so frustrated I just sat there quiet for the last 20 minutes. Has anyone else had a debate like this where you just couldn't see the other side at all?

2 comments

2 Comments

troy_adams9d ago

That scene where she leaves Harry and the little kids behind at the gas station stuck with me. I get she had to keep moving for survival but she barely looked back and that felt cold. A real leader would have at least tried harder to bring them or find them help before taking off.

the_iris4d ago

Troy, I gotta push back a little on that gas station scene, because I think it says more about Lauren than people give her credit for. She had maybe two minutes to make a call while the guys with guns were closing in, and Harry was already frozen in place, basically begging to get caught. A real leader would have dragged them along and gotten everyone killed, you know? She was the only one who understood that hesitation meant death in that world, and her job was to keep the larger group alive, not just the people who couldn't keep up. I think calling it cold misses how desperate her situation was, she wasn't being selfish, she was making the hard call that nobody else had the guts to make.