Sorrowland is unforgiving from page one, and continues in a kind of intensity that allows only a second or two for the reader to breathe and catch up. It savagely tears down anything that stands in the way of telling its truth, be it systemic racism, bad politics, gender discrimination, police brutality, and any kind of authority that uses its power for oppressing people. In short, my ideal kind of fairy tale. At the center of this tale is my hero Vern — fierce and unstoppable. She is one of the most unique characters I’ve ever met, and not just because she is a genderqueer albino with a nystagmus condition (involuntary rhythmic movement of the eyes); but because she has the kind of worldview that I wish more people would have. Aside from a having “a mind sharp enough to cut the world in half”, Vern is someone who sees the world without rose-tinted glasses but rather sees both the beauty and ugliness of it all. In spite of this she is still able to love everything deeply. She is an activist and her sense of justice is so pure and inspiring. On a side note, I love that the author did not use Vern’s conditions as mere embellishments without meaning. Vern really made me see the world differently and reminded me of the simple things that are worth appreciating and fighting for.

Sorrowland is a stunning blend of fantasy, science fiction, and the power of pain. At times, this book made me think of Stranger Things, Maximum Ride, Hatchet, and especially Beloved. Rivers Solomon has an unbelievably powerful voice, her work always minimal and resonant. Vern was an exceptionally real protagonist, and her children were so deftly written. Don’t even get me started on the sapphic sex scenes, because oh my god. Rivers is a masterful writer. I will continue to read anything they publish.

Whaaaat?! Challenging, dark, weird AF, confusing, this is beautifully written and likely to be a reread.

Wow this book was a ride. Sorrow land is a fever dream of cults, government conspiracies, and systematic racism.

I honestly don’t know how to review this book, it was a lot.

And yet it was still peppered with love and motherhood and the power of a community.

If you liked Mexican Gothic, Gather the Daughters, than this is the book for you.

I'm a reader who tends to stay in my comfort zone quite a lot, but I'll be the first to admit that stepping out of it once in a while is so worthwile. Sorrowland is a combination of a lot of elements I don't typically enjoy, but it was such a valuable reading experience. I thought it might take me a while to read this, but I could absolutely not put it down. I think that's largely because I tend to expect a book of this genre to be quite heavy, and parts of it definitely were, but this also felt like a really hopeful book, and there's a lot of love between Vern and her children.

Sorrowland is my first Rivers Solomon (even though an Unkindness of Ghosts has been on my tbr for literal years) and I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it even a month after finishing it.

This is a complex story with incredible depth. I regularly found myself highlighting without knowing what purpose it would serve. I'm still thinking through this one. Know that this is not a plot-driven novel, despite its mysterious undertones. It's heavy in character and reflection. It's a brilliant novel, but it is a slow-paced one and, as I was warned, the ending did feel rushed.

We follow Vern, a young Black parent who recently escaped Cainland, a religious cult. We learn pretty quickly that things are not what they seem as Vern and their twins set out on a journey that is filled with more questions than answers. What unravels is a tense and uncertain story of control, of medical experimentation, of metamorphosis and resistance. It's an exploration of co-optation and anti-queer violence that leads to a learned, internalized shame around queerness and gender identity. It's also about love and a shared understanding of how hate and violence impact self, community, and the earth.

This book has a lot to say about oppression and about existing outside the narrow confines of what is deemed by society as "acceptable." Through Solomon's tremendous characters, we can read a fierce analysis of our contemporary world and how, for so many of us, survival depends on coming to terms with what has been done to us both through recognition of self and through solidarity.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ecopy of this book. I enjoyed this so much more than I anticipated. I tried to read The Deep by this author and just couldn't get interested, but Sorrowland gripped me from the beginning. Our main character has such a fire to her from the first page. Every action is deliberate and is full of rebellion, from what she names her children to the way she makes love. I loved watching her grow and fully own her autonomy and agency. The sci fi element was extremely well done, pulling from historical events but remaining it's own unique story. This story succeeded in renewing my interest in this author.

Vern has run away from the only life she's ever known, because she knows she wasn't free. But now freedom comes with its own danger: nature, other people, loneliness, her own power, and those who hunt her. And the question really is whether it's even possible to escape the past that helped create her.

This was certainly an interesting novel. It starts off as a survival story, and then turns into a continual self discovery and affirmation and questioning story, and the turning into a supernatural story. I thought the premise was excellent and enjoyed slowly learning about Vern's past and how it's informed her present. Also, her children are hilarious as only small children can be.

All this being said, the supernatural component and its mechanism in this story actually didn't much appeal to me and so I didn't particularly enjoy that aspect of this novel. But overall, a grim and intense novel about coming to terms with your past and yourself.

Thank you Netgalley and FSGbooks for the gifted ebook!

[IG - @ps.readsmore]

This is the third time I have tried this author and they are just not for me. This is sort of magical realism, which I hate, and includes a whole pile of issues. I made it to about the 60% point and skimmed to the end. Vern spent a lot of time standing naked in the woods as she turned into who-knows-what magical/fungal thing. At least I know not to try this author again. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Sorrowland: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Rivers Solomon 

Thank you to the author, publish and Netgalley for the complimentary copy. I am choosing to leave a fair and honest review.

Reading Sorrowland is like listening to the most talented story teller. There is a character and a grit to the tale, we see that through the telling. It is also like watching a movie based on Kafka's Metamophorsis that takes place in Jonestown directed by the team of David Cronenburg and Jordan Peal from a treatment by Octavia S. Butler that Margaret Atwood turned into a script. There is a feeling of the ancient story of Lilith after she leaves Eden.
Pulling from the long history of how the US has treated woman, particularly Black and Indigenous Woman, and even more particularly, Queer Black and Indigenous women..
Vern grows up in what seems to be a Utopia of a religious compound, a place for Black folks to live together, untouched by the evils of the white folk. The religion is a mix of 1960s/1970s Black Power movement, a survivalist compound with connections to questionable people and a commune. Married to the current pastor, Sherman, she never quite fits in. After her friend, Lucy disappears and Vern finds herself pregnant and alone to fight against the religious mania of her husband. She leaves the compound to raise her children in the safety of the woods. She was fifteen.
The writing builds up slowly, showing exactly what kinds of horrors that Vern must live through. There are hints of the Gothic, focused on the wood as both sanctuary and prison. Dialogue and a narrator's voice so authentic, there were moments that I truly forgot I was reading, not listening to Vern speak.
Body horror is slowly introduce. But that body horror, like the forest, is never quite something to fear. It is the societal horror, in the mask of the long history of racism in the US and the reaction by the people who started the compound.
There are so many different genres – history, fantasy, horror, conspiracy lit – put into a single, tragic and profound story.
It is a challenging read that makes you question not only the truth of the story, but the truth behind the story.

4 ½ stars rounded up to 5 starts out of 5

https://www.amazon.com/Sorrowland-Novel-Rivers-Solomon-ebook/dp/B08FGV6LB2

If you are looking for a genre hybrid, this is a good one to pick up as it crosses sever different genres. This has elements of horror (body horror specifically), sci-fi, LGBT+, and it covers several social justice issues as well. This has a little bit of everything. This also has a very diverse cast of characters, some are comfortable in their own skin and some are on a journey of self acceptance.

This book is not going to be for everyone. It is going to appeal to a specific audience and is going to make quite a few readers uncomfortable. I would say if you enjoyed Mexican Gothic, The Rust Maidens, or The Metamorphosis you may enjoy this. The sci-fi/horror aspect is on that level of weird, but it is much darker and more violent than either of those. This has trigger warning for just about everything, Solomon doesn't pull any punches when it comes to some of the descriptions. I'd also say this is is more of an anti-hero story as Vern, our main character isn't very likeable and doesn't have very many redeeming qualities but you still are on her side. I find Solomon's writing style unique and compelling. It is almost poetic in a way.

After finishing this book I was left with that feeling of "What did I just read?", but in a good way. This book is weird, but as a fan of weird I mean that as the utmost compliment. There were parts I didn't enjoy, but I was completely engaged in Vern's transformation. I very much enjoyed the bizarre twists and turns and creativity that the author wove into this story. There are times that the storyline gets a bit confusing and muddled, but overall you can tell that the author is passionate about the issues present in the story and the characters they have created.

I was granted an ARC via Netgalley, however I did end up listening to the final production version of the audiobook. I find that listening to the audiobook of slower paced books helps me stay engaged, and this was the case here. I enjoyed the narrator and felt they did justice to the various voices present in the book.

Definitely couldn't stop reading this one once I started. It was lush and dark and so strange, and even aside from the more direct fantasy/sci-fi elements, I love that it was always pushing and probing into new ideas of reality. I don't always love the trope of having genius children around, but I think it's carried off well here. (Spoiler:) Would have loved even more exploration into the phenomenon of the mycelium-based "hauntings" throughout the book, which was fascinating to read.

This book was definitely not what I was expecting. I truly wanted to like it more than I did but it just wasn't the book for me. I loved the main character and thought she was such a badass, ride or die mother, but the story is where this fell really flat for me. The plot felt like it dragged on forever and I kept finding myself bored and not very motivated to keep reading. It was pretty cool to see Vern's transformation and see the story get progressively more and more fantastical. I also really enjoyed the writing overall, I was just bored through most of it.

“Sorrowland” by Rivers Solomon is very non-traditional. And oh-so-good! There’s so much about this story to break down, so I highly recommend it for book clubs.


Solomon’s main character is Vern, a pregnant 15-year-old Black albino girl who escapes the confines of a religious cult. And the cult leader is the father of her twin boys.

The story of Vern starts and ends in the woods, making Mother Nature another pivotal character in the story. Mother Nature watches over Vern as she learns to mother her two babies. Despite the fact that she’s just a baby herself.

But she rarely acts her age. She’s very independent, and a bit defiant. She’s wild, hurt and full of intensity. And she’s also incredibly brave.

Yet, Vern is very much like all humans in that she craves connection. Eventually she’s able to let her walls down, and discovers her sexuality. There’s a vulnerability within that we see glimpses of.

In an author interview with Solomon, it was interesting to learn more about how and why she created Vern. In this speculative fiction story, Vern’s character shines a light on our lives and helps us see things we don’t know are there. This metaphor is a good one as Vern has vision problems. Because she is disabled, she is shaped to see the world differently. She “sees” things that others cannot see. She uses her intuition and knows that things aren’t right…especially in Cainland, the compound where she was raised. By the end of the story, Vern morphs into something that no one will expect.

Special thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an advanced copy of the book via the NetGalley app. This is my honest review.

America's dark history of African peoples' brutalization is explored in the speculative fiction of Rivers Solomon in Sorrowland.

Vern is a young albino woman raising her twin babies in the wood. She keeps them hidden, protecting them from the creatures of the wood and a stalker who taunts her with kills dressed up as infants. Vern has escaped from a Black separatist commune with its own ideas on how she should be and act. When a parasite taking over her body offers her superhuman powers, Vern believes she is a government experiment being used by the United States government.

What begins as a soaring, folkloric exploration of survival turns into a science fiction piece that lacks any depth of evidence. Though the flow of the eloquent writing is pleasing throughout, the subject matter of experimentation on Black people throughout history is poorly developed.

There is no denying that such experiments (the Tuskegee Airmen Study, to name one) have proceeded through the annals of history. Unfortunately, this plot, which should drive half the book, remains underdeveloped. How Vern intuits that she is part of said experiment remains a mystery. What clues there may be, don't show up in the prose. So we are left to believe in Vern's belief.

The mystical quality of the writing hinders the scientific aspects of Sorrowland. With no evidence to build a compelling case of Vern's predicament, overall, the novel feels forced. It's a shame because the beginning survival part and the haunting memory of the atrocities Black people have endured in America is speculative fiction at its best.

A deeply ambitious and audacious novel, one that tackles race, motherhood, gender, religion, mental health, and so much more.

Solomon returns with another powerful piece with unparalleled writing. The story of Vern is ambitious but, as they have in the past, Solomon delivers. The examination of the unjust and unethical treatment of the black community is potently displayed in this story that is often brutal and surreal.

At the end of the day, it's as simple as saying Solomon is one of the most talented authors who have a message to share and does so loud and clear.

Unfortunately this book was not for me. I find that character driven novels are not for me personally but I appreciated the themes throughout the novel such as family, growth, sexual and gender exploration.
Solomon's prose is lyrical as always. I just did not gel with the book. The pacing was too slow for my liking.

Rivers Solomon is one of the authors on my automatic to-read list. There is nobody quite like them writing today, and this book is further evidence of that. I was really pleased to get an arc and I am thrilled to recommend it to others.

*****POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD:******
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Despite the unique style, content, and perspective we get in this novel, for some reason the mind hive fungus trope is something I happen to have read/listened to (in podcast dramas) no fewer than 4 times already in the past year, and as a result its use here didn’t make the full impact it could have (for me personally).
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I preferred Rivers’ first two books and the short story I read of theirs last year, but I would still give this novel 5 stars with no hesitation.

This was such a multi-layered and utterly engrossing book featuring one of the most memorable protagonists I have ever read. We follow Vern, a 15 year old pregnant girl as she escapes from 'Cainland' - a religious cult. Following her flight, she gives birth in the woods and discovers strange changes to her body that she cannot explain. What I loved most about this book was the way the story just kept building layer upon layer in such a stunningly skillful way. So although the opening section with Vern is completely compelling, somehow Rivers Solomon managed to keep introducing new aspects to the story to make it even more fascinating. Dealing unapologetically with the legacy of slavery and the systematic oppression of minorities, the narrative also examines the history of government experimentation and testing, as well as compulsory sterilisation for native women. By no means an easy read, this is an absolute masterpiece of speculative fiction and I cannot wait to see what Rivers Solomon offers up next! Amazing!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.