note for publisher: this is the same review as for the uk edition of the book, i was somehow approved for both copies on netgalley

Sorrowland is Rivers Solomons latest novel, and is a wild fever dream of a novel. Exploring themes of death, life and ultimately what it means to be human whilst also touching on race, gender, sexuality and motherhood this book ties it all together into a emotional ride.

We are following Vern, who at the start of the novel escapes a cult that she has been raised in. She gives birth to two children in the woods and from there we watch as she raises the children in the woods, whilst being haunted by strange ghosts of her past and her body is undergoing a metamorphesis. She is also being hunted down by the cult and a starnge figure called the fiend. Slowly throughout the novel secrets are revealed as well as goverment conspiracies and hidden agendas.

The best way I can describe this is weird but extremely compelling. I loved the exploration of the woods and nature, and there was a quote towards the end explaining the name of the novel and that almost made me start sobbing. This novel really explores memory and how people live on through others, we see literal and metaphorical ghosts (and I love ghosts so this was a major plus for me!!!) and the consequences these ghosts have on our main character Vern.

I found the cult aspect really interesting, they worship the god of cain seeing the traditional chirstian god as an abomination. The cult is also exclusively black people, and they are eschewing the corrupting influence of white people and the diseases of the west. They also very much look down of homosexuality and see it has a white mans disease, which definitely affects Vern and how she sees herself and discovers her sexuality, slowly learning to see it without shame.

I adored Verns children, Howling and Feral, they added so much to the story for me and seeing Vern's struggles and joy in raising them was so emotional. They were also both so cute and I loved seeing their little personalities develop. The theme of motherhood is big in this novel, and the things mothers do for their children which may not seem like a good idea in hindsight but is the best they can do at the time, as well as the sacrifies mothers make.

The relationships explored in this book were also fascinating, I esepcially loved Gogo and Verns relationships, and there were some suprisingly steamy sexual scenes!!!!! (sapphic sex scenes is always something i love to see). I also loved the discussion of masturabation and Verns wild and joyous exploration of her body.

There was also some very interesting discussions on gender, with Gogo being trans (and some element of non-binary as well) and I believe Vern was intersex although this word wasn't explicitly used. Howling and Feral are also always used he/him pronouns for both but it is implied this might not match their genetalia. They are very much raised away from gender expectations and I think this is a great way of demostrating how children should just be able to devlop their personalities without having the restrictions of societal expectations.

I think, similar to an unkindness of ghosts, this book struggles a little with the pacing. I was kept engaged throughout despite a fairly steady pace, which I was enjoying and felt like a good chance to really explore the themes and characters however the last 10% the pacing becoems really fast and explosive events start happening and I just felt this was a little jarring and didn't have enough time to explore the consequences. Despite this I did still really enjoy the book!!!

In conclusion, a beautifully written immersive novel, looking at some of the darker aspects of humanity but also how beautiful things can grow from this.

Rivers Solomon's Sorrowland is a gorgeous, haunting story about family, self-discovery, and hope in the face of injustice. The book opens with Vern, the protagonist, escaping the cult where she grew up, fleeing into the woods in the surrounding area to raise her children away from the oppressive power of the cult and her husband.

From there, it unspools into a wonderful urban sci-fi coming-of-age story, interwoven with commentary on oppressive power structures, love, family, consent, self-discovery, and self-acceptance. The characters, most of whom are PoC and/or queer, are beautifully realized and very human. The stranger aspects of the story are interspersed with small, charming bits of human drama, which make the world delightful and very believable, even in its "stranger" aspects.

My one critique is that the pacing at times felt a little unbalanced, and that the beginning was not as gripping as the rest of the novel. it took most of the first section before I felt really invested in Vern, in her family and her story, and it felt like the overarching plot escalated so quickly it was almost jarring in the remainder of the book.

Very much recommended, and I look forward to continuing to devour everything that Rivers Solomon ever writes. Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Solomon’s novel explores a woman’s ability to not only survive on the fringes of society but thrive off the land while raising her newborn babes and discovering painful secrets about the community she escaped. Solomon examines different facets of racism, gender, cults, independence, survival, and control in Vern’s eerie tale of escape from a cult’s control.

The story begins with Vern’s escape from ‘Cainland,’ a cult supposedly dedicated to protecting and empowering black people. Vern runs through the forest surrounding the compound, about to give birth and trying to stay safe from danger, stalking her every move. We follow along as Vern and her children not only survive but thrive in the forest independent from others. As time progresses, Vern becomes increasingly unwell and decides to leave their forest home’s safety to search for Lucy, Vern’s childhood friend from ‘Cainland,’ who escaped the cult years earlier. As Vern and her children venture into society, secrets about the Blessed Acres become apparent, and Vern and her family’s future is questionable.

Solomon’s novel has a beautiful, eerie quality to it as we’re submerged into Vern’s need for survival and escape from society’s restrictions, only to be dragged back in. Her ability to shed gender norms for her children was thought-provoking to read. Once more background on the ‘black power cult’ is revealed, how government and others are involved in its operation and treatment of black people is both appalling and heart-wrenchingly truthful to the past. The story makes me consider just how far we’re willing to go to ensure our survival and what we’ll do for the sake of revenge.

This book was brilliant. It's full of metaphors about generational trauma and systemic racism. The lush prose about the forest and vivid descriptions of Vern's survival in the wilderness was definitely this story's strongest element. Also, I loved the gothic and transformational element of the story.

Vern, the main character, has recently fled Cainland and must survive in the wilderness. The book opens as Vern is giving birth in he wilderness. This book is 1 part survival story, 1 part gothic, and 1 part sci-fi. While I loved the deeper meaning of the story and the beautiful writing, I did get lost at times in the writing structure. It was pretty dense, and it wasn't filled with a lot of dialogue. I especially began to lose steam at the 60% mark. I believe it is because this novel tackles a lot of different genres and it is easy to get overwhelmed with all the constant shifts.

However, despite having slight personal issues with the writing structure, this novel is a transcendent, magic, and unique experience that you can only get from cracking it open and giving it a shot for yourself.

Book Review for Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
Full review for this title can be found at: @fyebooks on Instagram!

Sorrowland is the story of Vern, her escape from a commune-turned-cult, her motherhood, her restless, righteous hunt for survival, for safety and for answers. It's also the story of state atrocities, overt & covert, of medical experimentation, of the body-horror and body-euphoria of transformation, of identity & feeling & being beyond the limits of language, of trauma and fury and also, insistently, tenderness.

On a conceptual level, it's brilliant and sharp-edged and startling and exhilarating; on a prose level, it's both transparent and beautiful, lush, earthy, vivid in details but always clear and always moving. Just really, really, exquisitely good!

With a compelling narration, the author takes us to know the life of Vern, a young woman who grew up in a cult and who decided to escape under very difficult circumstances.

Vern will have to survive in the forest but when it's no longer safe, she will have to venture out into the world in order to protect her little family.

It's a very interesting premise, with very sad moments, action and situations that kept me very concerned about the well-being of the characters. It's a book that very slowly shows what is happening, so if you are more of a fan of quick stories perhaps this is not for you. Personally, I found that the story was lost at times, and that it isn't explained very well how to you get from point 1 to 2 and 3. The relationships between the characters is hasty but still entertaining. It's not my style of reading to be honest.... but I liked the storytelling.

Thanks to Rivers Solomon, Tor.com, and Netgalley for the advanced readying e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Sorrowland is one of those books I slowed down reading towards the end because I simply did not want it to finish. It follows Vern from the point where she leaves the cult she grew up in, a pregnant teenager full of determination and rage. She discovers more about herself as her world expands from the forest where she raises her children. This book is equal parts rough emotion and beautiful imagery. Solomon writes with poetry and fury, building an incredible, unique character. This draws on ghost stories, hauntings, earth magic and modern history to create something that is totally its own. It was different from The Deep, the only other work I've read by them, but explores some of the same themes. It's queer and black and just so captivating. Includes Native American third-gender representation. Trigger warnings for child abuse, racism and violence.

As always I would like to start out by saying I am not own voices in this subject so please go check out those reviews first.
I loved this book! I knew I was going to like it since I liked Rivers' other books so much especially the Deep. That being said this is a really hard book to review. This book covers a lot and most of it I have no authority to speak on.
I can say I really enjoyed the plot Rivers constructed. I couldn't put this book down because I just had to know what was going to happen. The mystery they created was so good and spooky in a way I was not expecting. Honestly over all the plot of this book was just amazing.
I also really enjoyed the characters. I especially loved Howling and Feral. The two were so distinctly different and unique from any other characters I have read. They were one of the most fascinating parts of the story for me and I honestly they had been in the story a bit more.
If you are looking for a unique fantasy/horror this id the book for you. This book also deals with some amazing and tough subject in a unique way. (Again check out own voices reviews for thought on those subjects.) This definitely a book I can not wait to read again and show off and recommend.
Thanks to Netgalley for an early review copy.

3.5/5 stars

🐻 Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this e-arc!


✨I seem to be the person with the lowest rating but i'm not too surprised. Rivers' writing was lush and alluring, both being its own downfalls. It at times was confusing, dynamic and heartwarming. My favorite parts were definitely ones in which we dwell into the twins' relationship with their bearer, as some things happen that move the story forward. Let it be known that 3.5 isn't a low number, this is a review where i do more praise than slander. Speaking of, a critique would perhaps be the lack of continuity in terms of timing and prose. It either goes on a long string of puzzled together words or described into on simple sentence. Feral is amazing.

A beautiful, lyric account. Emotion was portrayed well, allowing you to connect to the story in a meaningful way. Would definitely recommend!

I've never read anything like Sorrowland, and I'm at a little bit of a loss for how to describe a story that feels intimate and immense in equal measure. The narrative follows Vern, a pregnant young woman whose escape from a violent cult masquerading as a Black power commune sparks a series of enormous changes both personal and institutional. We uncover the mystery of Cainland's past at the same time Vern does; her emergence from the woods where the first part of the book takes place reflects her growing awareness of fundamental changes to her body and her consciousness set in motion by her time on the commune.

Vern's wisdom lies in her ability to recognize danger when she sees it and to confront that danger squarely and immediately. I didn't realize what a rare quality that was until I found my assumptions continually undermined by her clarity: at moments where I expected deference, diplomacy, and forbearance, Vern confronted. She fought. At one point, she notes that she never understood what keeps people static in painful situations—never understood the concept of choosing your battles. Why not fight? It's a question I want to ask myself more.

The moments where Sorrowland lingers over relationships were my favorite; the novel has a frankness about bodies and a softness about love that I adore. At times, though, the pacing felt a little strange. The slow build of the beginning of this book transitions into a rapid unveiling of secrets that lost me a little at the end. Nonetheless, this is one that will haunt me for a while.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC!

“No amount of blood bath could cleanse this land of sorrow.”

This book is hands-down in the top 5 most unique books I have ever read. I cannot recall the last time I felt so fully enveloped by a fictional world.

Sorrowland tells the story of Vern. She has grown up in a Black power cult called the Blessed Acres of Cainland, where she has been subjected to various improprieties. Seven months pregnant, Vern chooses to escape and embarks on a harrowing journey with her twin babies in tow.

Solomon’s craftsmanship in Sorrowland is breathtaking. The characters were deeply intriguing from page one and only continued to develop robustly throughout the story. The queer, WLW elements of this book are stunning. It is a tale that defies traditional genre norms as Solomon seamlessly weaves sci-fi, gothic, adventure, and contemporary fiction together into one piece.

I particularly loved the way fae chose to pace out this story. There is an unsteadiness to the pacing that, in any other book, would likely feel jarring. However, Solomon does a phenomenal job of speeding up and slowing down at the perfect moments. Fae have written a masterpiece that will wrap you up whole and thrust you on a ride full of twists and turns.

Throughout her journey, Vern is continuously forced to confront the dark history behind her upbringing and the violent hatred rooted deeply in her country. At its core, this story is a bleak, raw showcase of the atrocities committed against Black people in America at the hands of white supremacy. Solomon does not hold back. This book is so important; a 2021 must read.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Netgalley for sending me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

VERY EMOTIONAL!! 15, forced into a marriage, cults, Vern is dealing with some VERY intense topics. She's so complex, and the story was just super fantastic. It took a while for me to finish since it was a really heavy read (emotionally), but I am so glad I did finish it. WELL DONE!

(CW: body horror, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, blood, death, child torture)

Sorrowland left me feeling numb and bittersweet. It's a book of horrors of all kind -- from the stereotypical seeing dead people to body horror. To the horrors of domestic abuse, sexual abuse. And even the horrors of what the USA has done experimenting on the Black population. And so much more. Sorrowland is an apt title.

This is not a comforting book. It doesn't hold your hand because it doesn't have time for niceties. This book rips you from where you are and screams in your face for you to stop and listen. It yells out in pain that it knows you can't do anything about. The pain of the people in Cainland, which might be a cult but who knows for sure? The pain of Vern as she struggles with all she's become: mother, demigod, lover? This book is angry, is hurt. And it wants you to listen.

There's a large cast of characters, but only a few that are major key players. Vern considers herself somewhere between a woman and a man. She begins the novel almost doing things by rote, out of necessity to just survive in the woods. But over the course of the book, she develops as a person and becomes more sure of herself. More sure of what she wants and who she wants. She is a fierce mother, but will protect her children Howling and Feral with intense force. Gogo is a winkte (Lakota term sometimes referred to as "two-spirit person"), and she does her best to help Vern in all her needs -- even both their needs for love with each other. And then there's Cainland. While not literally a character, the compound feels like a living presence in its own right.

We're given glimpses of Blessed Acres (Cainland) through various flashbacks. It was almost like the book was reminding the reader that suffering happens wherever you are. But good memories can also happen wherever you are. The flashbacks are countered with a few regular small time skips that help keep the novel moving forward.

This book is intense and raw. But in the end it was beautiful in a bittersweet way. It's not for the faint of heart or those looking for comfort or happiness. In the end, though, this book should be read. It was truly spectacular.

This book is a hard one to review given the enormity of what it achieves.

First, I want to express my surprise at the lack of male-gaze in a topic where I would expect it. The author is nonbinary and I can hear that perspective in the writing. The main character, Vern, is a teen mother who was forced into marriage at 15 by a cult her mother joined. It's so easy to fetishize this character, or to reduce her entire identity to motherhood, but her femininity, sense of self, and sexual discovery are approached with a unique sense of empowerment and reverence.

This tackles a lot of characters on the "fringe" of society. Vern is an albino woman from a black family, and an escapee from a cult that rose from a racial movement. Gogo is a Native American who was not raised in their culture, and who is two-spirit in a world that doesn't even know this identity in their language. Howling and Feral are children raised without society's conditioning, precocious in their thirst for knowledge but lacking structure from the world at large.

I love that Vern's fight isn't against any single thing, but the mix of all of these. Cainland and its tenants stand for the system in any form, and Vern is a single woman visually and emotionally set apart.

The sci-fi, or magical realism - what have you - is unique from anything I've read. I don't want to get too deep into this because it's a story that should be experienced first-hand!

If I were to offer any criticism, it would be that this story sometimes felt burdened by what it was saying, to the point that I wasn't fully immersed in Vern's life. I'm excited to read other works by this author because I think a less ambitious story may be more immersive within their writing style.

This is the second book I've read by this author and her work only gets better with every title. Her books aren't for everyone and this story goes unapologetically into some very heavy topics. Vern's, the main character, journey takes her through battles I imagine many black women face. These fights are disguised in almost magical metaphor and accentuated by harsh realities. I don't think I was able to truly plumb the depths of some of the meaning and messages - being a white women I'm sure I missed many subtle but important truths. This and her previous work, The Deep, are books I'd love to pick apart in a literature course. The writing is literary, although 'course' at times. Her characters feel authentic most of the time. The story progresses slowly and carefully. That may put some readers off. It does pick up quite a bit in the last third or so. I do think it's important for the reader to keep in mind that this is a sci-fi story at it's core. It's easy to get swept up in the grittiness of her plight and miss the messages. I found Sorrowland to be compelling, thought-provoking, and haunting read good for anyone who isn't afraid of a dark story that brings the fight to your preconceptions.

trigger warning
<spoiler> child abuse, domestic abuse, gaslighting, being drugged, being experimented upon, homophobia, misogyny, mention of suicide, child murder, kidnapping, torture, racism, self harm </spoiler>

A woman gives birth to twins in the wood, hunted down by an unnown fiend, and has to rely on her wit and her courage to keep them safe.

This is more about the characters than about the plot, but if you read on, you'll see there is one, and it's not to be underestimated.

Sorrowland is the first book by this author I've read, but certainly not the last.
I had some trouble getting into it, but that was more about things being depressing on top of me being depressed than any fault of the book. This book is about racism, about not fitting in into a group of misfits despite being one of them. Having to fight for survival again and again and again.

Regarding the tags: Vern calls themselves a lesbian but also says there's more than the gender binary has to offer on, so I chose both lesbian and non binary. In this discussion, there also is another person, a Lakota person, saying they're not exactly in the man-woman boxes.

The horror in this book is more about things humans do to each other than monster, despite having people who look like monsters. This is the horror that gets under my skin, and I dare not think too closely about that.

I liked how the characters felt real, and that so many issues are mentioned, because again, it feels real. It's not like oh you have to wrestle with misogyny, so every other issue knows to steer clear because you're already having troubles. It feels more like problems are pack animals, and once one arrived, the others are not too far away.

Especially I liked that we have flawed characters that make mistake that are not excused. Because that's how people work - you might be nice and kind and constructive most of the times, but then one day you can't control yourself or burst out from pent-up pressure. That doesn't make you a bad person, it just makes you human.

Now that I think about it, this is the first time in a few weeks that it doesn't startle me when characters go outside, go to a store, are amongst people, because I am so in lockdown every group stands out like a sore thumb, because after they come from the woods, where they lived not exactly homeless but roofless, they're confused by the lights, the sounds, the smells.

Everything fits. This was not an easy read, and it will take some time till I'll look up further works by this author, but I am sure I'll feel like I needed that after reading them, just like I do now after this one.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

What a strange and fantastic book. This story was thought provoking, dark, disturbing and gorgeous. The story of a mother, woman, lover, victim and fighter who is completely different than anyone I have ever read about. I highly recommend this book.

Thanks to Farrar, Strauss & Giroux for providing me with an advanced reading copy via NetGalley.

We’re just a mere 19 days into this 2021 malarkey but I may already have found one of my best reads of the year. Rivers Solomon: take a bow. Thank you to Net Galley for letting me get out here ahead of the pack and say: pre-order this stunner now!

Having read and savoured both of Solomon’s previous speculative genre pieces- the exquisitely named and front-covered ‘An Unkindness of Ghosts’ and ‘The Deep’, an afrofuturist tale of merpeople, adapted from an experimental rap song, I was ALL IN for whatever literary genius they wrote next. What I wasn’t necessarily expecting was to see just how much their craft has grown in ‘Sorrowland’: this is masterful storytelling of the absolute highest order.

Imagine if Toni Morrison wrote a woke, Afrofuturist version of “The Handmaid’s Tale”, spliced with “Mexican Gothic” and you’d be....somewhere nearby, but not altogether in the same ballpark occupied by River Solomon’s wholly original masterpiece. Divided into three genre-shifting sections that- as will become appropriate- shift and metamorphose into something incredibly bold and powerful, Solomon’s story is the gift that keeps on giving. What seems like a (relatively!) simple tale of a Black albino girl escaping from her sermonising husband and the sinister cult he leads, running into the woods to birth her twins and lead a feral life of survival, warps into a profoundly thrilling and thrillingly profound journey of: self-discovery; of queer love and desire; of wildness; of filial duty; of co-opted rebellion; of fighting back against the forces that continue to bruise, maim and destroy the black body with their barbarism.

America’s dark legacy of racialised violence is laid bare in brutal, fierce ways here, as Vern, our protagonist, is quite literally haunted by her nation’s brutality. Embracing her own metamorphosis into queer womanhood, into motherhood, into something terrifying and unfathomably powerful, Vern must confront generations of suffering in order to transform into the mother/lover/citizen/person she deserves to be.

The novel’s range is phenomenal: it is fantastical, soaked in the language of the woodlands and the supernatural, but it is also achingly familiar and pertinent in its social commentary, so utterly vibrant in its representation of queer love and gender, offering up scenes of the most frightening, most visceral Gothic horror I’ve read in ever, whilst also being tender, heartbreaking, funny and exciting: it is a shimmering, pulsating beast of contradictions. It is vita, it is fresh, it is brilliant.

‘Sorrowland’ is a wildly imaginative, dazzlingly executed work of fiction that will be amongst the best books of 2021.