Sorrowland is the story of Vern, a pregnant teenager who flees the cult she was raised in, Cainland. Vern decides to escape everything she has always known to raise her children in the woods.

This is the basic synopsis, but there is so much more going inside this book. This book has sci-fi elements, fantasy elements, contemporary elements and probably more. It's a mix of genres, a hard book to categorise and a strange book to like. To be honest, I'm not sure if I liked it myself.

Vern is a great main character, she's strong and stubborn and questions everything she was told, she fights on for her sake and for her children sake. Despite her health failing her, she does everything she can to raise her children and she does it with strength.

This book explores a lot of topics, I loved the take on sexuality, gender and LGBTQ+ issues in general. Seeing the characters learning to love the fact they're queer, despite being taught it was something be ashamed of, was heartwarming to see. It reminded me of how I grew up and my own acceptance journey. I loved the discussion and critique of the current politic climate, the message on race and religion.
Sorrowland manages to talk about all of this and more and it does it with a graceful and impactful writing style. This was probably my favorite aspect of the book, the way things are told. It's poetic.

This being said, this book has many flaws. I was lost and a bit bored throughout the book. The first 30%-40% was slow but beautiful. And then I started being confused. I even thought I was going to dnf it. I had to reread some parts multiple times and until I gave up and decided to move on. The plot and the why stuff happened were so poorly explained that I started to question my intelligence. I still can't tell you more half of the things that happened, let alone explain to you how and why they happened. I can't even pinpoint or remember all the characters. At some point, I just passively kept reading. I have no idea how the resolution came along, but even with my poor understanding of stuff, I can tell you it was too convenient and happened too fast.

To end this review, I'll say that I don't know where I stand. But maybe you should try for yourself and see how you like it. I know this isn't a book for everyone, but I can see why some people may love it and why some people might not.

A really interesting book, with a lot to say. I thought a lot of it was really well written, but on the other hand I had trouble following it sometimes, and found some of the plotting and events confusing.

There are so many things I loved about this book! The reflections on today's world really makes you think about how we, in America, as a society view BIPOC people as a whole and their daily fights just to exist.
Now this book is queer and paranormal, that was a tiny bit much for me. However Solomon still delivered a very excellent read all in all. My only critique is that I prefer my characters to glean information through action. It makes the pacing flow and is a better story to me. Thanks for the opportunity to read it. I did enjoy it!

This is the story of Vern, a fifteen year old albino black woman who flees the ‘Cainland’ compound where she has grown up. She goes into the woods where she gives birth to twins who she names Howling and Feral. Vern experiences ‘hauntings’ which seem like hallucinations but also feel real. After several years surviving deep in the woods, Vern ventures out ......What follows is impossible to categorise, it’s part horror, part magical fantasy, there are elements of science fiction, it’s part political and historical. It has a multitude of themes including motherhood, race, identity and gender, survivalism and living wild and transformation. It includes characters that are on the fringes of society obviously which includes Vern but also Gogo who helps her, who is Native American.

Thanks to NetGalley for Arc exchange for a far and honest review.
3.5 to 4 stars (closer to 4)
really good book that I overhyped for myself. Part of what I love about fae's books is the deep speculative nature. This book was plenty speculative, don't get me wrong. It just felt the least of them all. It is rich in themes and a very well crafter story like we have come to expect of fae. I just couldn't help but feel disappoint by it not going where I hoped it would.

The general set up of the story follows a young woman who escapes a cult where she became impregnated at 15. We follow her after her escape, as she raises them in the wild because she doesn't trust anyone in regular society not to be connected to the cult.

The story explore religion, religious dogma, racism, and the way white people use various institutions to control POC. I still recommend this book because it's just as insightful as all the rest fae makes.

Starting out this book I was very excited, the cover is gorgeous and I was intrigued by the description. It follows themes of racism, abuse, gender and sexuality and focuses on those considered on the "fringe" of society. I appreciated the thought behind this book but found the execution of it a little confusing at times to follow and the story dragged a bit through the middle. Overall though, I enjoyed the majority of the story and the writing. Sorrowland is a uniquely interesting and artful read and I would definitely recommend it.

Rivers Solomon writes compelling and engaging stories that bounce around inside your head like a the echo of a gong. In Sorrowland, she unfurls the story of Vern, girl who has been pushed to the edges of her existence - first as a child bride in a religious cult, then as a partially blind mother of twins, trapped in the woods, trying to keep herself and her babies alive. As her belief in herself is challenged again and again, we realize that the real story is who is Vern, what is she becoming, and what can she do with that knowledge?

This book is so powerful, and so very compelling, and is finally one of those stories that stays with you. I enjoy Solomon's skill so much. She writes you down a path, and and you gleefully go along, only to realize she doubled back and you've been stranded somewhere dangerous and important, right where she wanted you and you didn't see it coming.

Sooooooooo…

At the beginning of this book I had no idea what to expect. It started off a little crazy but I had an inkling it was going to be really interesting. Suspension of belief was needed almost right away, which I thought was strange as I didn’t know this was going to have any paranormal elements.

But then everything went sideways. The story ran in a completely different direction than I expected. I thought Vern and her two babies would be the central characters but there was much of the book where the kids didn’t figure in at all.

And then the paranormal elements became even stranger.

After taking a step back, I can see how the author related horrible transgressions of the US Govt towards people of color into these paranormal events. I can appreciate the hidden meanings. But the storyline was just so crazy, the character bounced around and changed so much that I couldn’t follow the ARC.

I just didn’t really enjoy it from a story perspective. I’m sure it’s a brilliant work of art, it just was not an enjoyable read for entertainment, IMO.

It was a wonderful mashup of fantasy and scifi, it took me a little while settling down with the the book. As it progressed I was curious to see how it ended. I was left wanting more, and it was a little disappointing that it had to come to an end.

This book follows a pregnant woman as she gives birth to twins in the forest and we find out that all the while she is being hunted. She also began to have a strange physical transformation and there was some romance with another woman which I enjoyed reading about. Overall, Sorrowland was a very atmospheric and strange story I had a hard time to grasp. Perhaps I wasn't focused enough but I feel like the focus changed sometimes and I wasn't completely into it. This is a me problem not a book problem as it was well-written

(Thank you for letting me read and review an ARC via Netgalley)

Real Rating: 4.75* of five, rounded up because the author's A Major Talent

↡↡↡ HEED. THE. CONTENT. WARNINGS. BELOW. ↡↡↡

There are almost no good people in this world, and Vern meets the worst of them. What makes this a deeply satisfying read is that teenaged Vern, in their unbelievable indomitable drive to thrive not just survive, manages to do exactly that. Overcoming all-too-real obstacles? Check. Guiding new lives through a terrible world, explaining how to be better? Check. Vern raising their children is the single brightest take-away I have from this unhappy story.
Loving, worshipping, and bowing down to folks who harmed you was written into the genes of all animal creatures. To be alive meant to lust after connection, and better to have one with the enemy than with no one at all. A baby's fingers and mouth grasp on instinct.

If I were to seek my mental filing system's catalog for closest comparables, I'd have to go with Toni Morrison's deathless <I>Beloved</i> admixed with Octavia E. Butler's more trenchant <I>Kindred</i>, as written for Quentin Tarantino to film. Yes...violence and menace are imbued in every scene. No, it isn't a splatterfest. Yes, every single thing that happens evokes an emotional response. No, there are no "answers" or fancy nostrums to help us deal with the underlying hate, like the lava in a volcano, erupting for as long as it erupts.
Going against tended to end more rightly, more justly, than going with. People were wrong. Rules, most of the time, favored not what was right, but what was convenient or preferable to those in charge.

If you've read 2017's <I>An Unkindness of Ghosts</i> or 2019's <I>Blood is Another Word for Hunger</i>, you're ahead of me in this realization. If you haven't, read this book. You will not regret your introduction to the magical prose that Author Solomon uses being this story. I'm willing to bet you'll get on to their back catalog after finishing the read. If not, if this is just all too much for your sensibilities at the present, read their free online short work that's part of The Verge's "Better Worlds" project: <I>St. Juju</i>.

This writer is a Talent in a world that needs more of them.

CW: sexual assault, CW: violence

Fun to read a sci-fi fantasy with a queer protagonist. The plot of this involves a mysterious metamorphosis that our main character begins to go through upon fleeing, pregnant, from a colony of people. Usually I'm not one for sci-fi but this was able to maintain my attention. Entertaining mostly and I had a good time.

This was an ambitious, dark and harrowing read. Oppression, subjugation, abuse and the imposition of religion and ‘norms’. This is a compelling story of one family’s struggle to survive a horrifying world. This was not a comfortable read but it certainly was an important one, in a unique and distinctive voice.

In all honesty I almost DNF'd this book and I think it has largely to do with me and how I just didn't vibe with the characters, I've finally finished it and I can't say I disliked it. It was enjoyable but a tad slow for me. However, the worldbuilding was amazing. If there is something I absolutely enjoyed about this book is that sometimes it felt as if I was watching a movie.

What a fierce novel! Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon had be captivated since page one. Much like the cult Vern had escaped from. The writing style is poetic with just the right amount of rdge and darkness. Solomon weaves in important messages of inequality and intolerance. This is a good read!

This was Definitley an interesting tale. It is Definitley genre bending and does not fit into any box as far as traditional books go. This was another author I hope to read more from in the future,

This was my first Rivers Solomon book and it definitely won't be my last, however, I think this one is just a bit too bizarre for me personally. Their writing is honestly some of the best I've read this year, if not ever, but the plot became too convoluted for my personal taste.

3.5/5

"Vern would always prefer a difficult truth to an easy lie."

Vern, a 15-year-old girl, runs away while pregnant from a religious sect. Slowly, we will know her story and what it is haunting her in the forest.

"Loving, worshipping, and bowing to folks who harmed you was written into the genes of all animal creatures."

Let's first talk about the protagonist, Vern, who is a child who has been abused and who has not been protected by the adults who are supposed to. We get to know Vern in depth, with whom it is not difficult to empathize, and on the surface we meet her twins, Howling and Feral, whom she gives birth to in the woods. Pursued by the community from which she fled, she decides to keep moving forward in search of answers.

The atmosphere during the time she spends in the forest is very interesting, since Vern must be alert at every moment, and she transmits that feeling of unease to us throughout the pages. The descriptions are abundant, both in the atmosphere and in the progress of the story, so it is possible to imagine the entire environment in which the novel takes place. However, the pacing of the story seemed very slow to me in the first half of the book. In the second half, things happen all the time and it was difficult for me to detach myself from it, but the first part took me many days of reading. In fact I felt that I could not enjoy it as much, because I had lost some of the interest that I had initially.

How far does religious fanaticism go? This and many other topics are those that are addressed and questioned here, such as discrimination, corruption, etc. The plot of the story is very interesting, not only because of the topics that are covered, but the fantastic / sci-fi part had an interesting twist.

It is a book that was original to me because of what it states and how it does it, how in a fictional novel it addresses many real issues that concern us, and the world building that this story presents.

Uh, I don’t think I’m a fan of sci-fi because this wasn’t for me.

A lot of things happened in this story and I don’t feel attached to any of them but yet I kept pushing to finish this because I wanted to see how it would end.

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book! I will be posting my review on social media, to include Instagram, Amazon, Goodreads, and Instagram!