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schildpad 's review for:

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
4.0

"Because without a name for it, it's just something I am. A part of life. Once it's go a name, I know that means someone has studied it, dissected it, pulled i apart. When something has a name, hey can say it's bad. "

This was dark but very good. Expected the fungi horror (which delivered) but it unexpectedly also heavily dealt with themes around cults and manipulation, and to my surprise, I though these parts were even better. What I specifically thought was well done with those, was how Vern recognised patterns of what happened on a bigger scale (in a cult) in the even bigger scale of a whole society (America/what it means being American) & on the much smaller scale of interpersonal relationships. Truly horrific and well done.

Vern was also an interesting main character - and I liked that she was flawed and sometimes a horrible person while I also continued to root for her.

My main criticisms would be the societal critique was a bit on the nose sometimes, the pacing was a bit off (with big events happening very suddenly) and some of the fighting scenes were impossible to make sense of (but the latter might also be my problem tbh).