Fledgling, by Octavia ButlerRead about the other entries on the list.
I’m a hard sell on vampires, and an almost impossible sell on amnesia stories. But I adore beyond words Butler’s final novel, the tale of a young woman who wakes up with no memory—and turns out not to be as young as she looks. Like most of Butler’s work, it dives deep into questions of power and consent. Shori has to drink blood to live, and can’t help forming an intimate and unequal bond with those she feeds from. In between trying to learn who stole her memory and why, she has to figure out how to have an ethical relationship with people inherently weaker than her—and whether it’s even possible.
There were supposed to be more of these, damn it.
Fledgling is among Nisi Shawl's five stories about loving everybody.
--Marshal Zeringue