Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.
Content warnings: animal killings, self harm, childbirth, alcohol abuse, cult, gaslight, pedophilia, blood, death, drowning, rape, attempted forcing of medication, torture, hallucination, brainwash, non-consensual medical experiment, reclaimed d slur, suicide, cannibalism?, voyeurism?, drug abuse, child abuse
The craft of fiction at its finest.
Sorrowland opens in the woods with the fifteen-year-old Vern—who is Black, albino (the term is used in text), and intersex—giving birth to twins Howling and Feral, the latter also has albinism. Vern grew up in the Blessed Acres of Cain, a religious compound that was supposed to be a Black utopia, but she had to escape because everything there seems to be a lie. Over the next several months and years, Vern’s body begins to change. She is both stronger and more vulnerable, and she starts to understand that the power of the past while struggling to raise the twins with the freedom she never had.
I used to wish for a book in contemporary settings that references history and beliefs while telling a brand new story deeply influenced by the past. And now I have found it in Sorrowland.
