mmilla 's review for:

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

4.0

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I've had this book in my TBR for awhile, but I dusted it off for Blackathon. Rivers Solomon is a complicated writer, and their characters are complicated - Vern is independent, wilful and stubborn. She runs away from a cult she's lived all her life and gives birth to twins in the forest, and keeps on going. I struggled with the beginning of the book because I had no idea where the story was going or what was even happening, but the narrative clears after few chapters.

The story is - lack of a better word - haunting - both literally and figuratively. Vern struggles between trauma and love, independence and trust. She's real and flawed, she has layers and layers on her, and she tries her best to keep her little family alive. Especially in the beginning the reader can't really tell when she's imagining things or not, what is mythology from her cult and what is real. Then about half-way through the book it goes X-Files and the very unexpected fungus element takes it to somewhere completely different.

For the entire time I really didn't know where the story was taking me. What a ride. Rivers Solomon is firmly on my "must read" list.

Read for
Blackathon | Team Hatshepsut

A book of any genre by a Trans Black diasporic author
The Deep by Rivers Solomon
Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callander

A Black girl protagonist who is not afraid to be loud, confrontational, or to take up space.
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Delicious Monsters by Giselle Sambury
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

A book of any genre with an impressive, creative architecture or set largely in one building
The World We Make by N. K. Jemisin

A book with lavishly wealthy characters or explores class
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet
House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson