Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

If someone went perusing the library of my mind palace, they’d surely notice some recurring themes, things of special interest, irresistible attractors including but not limited to cults, governmental psych experiments, superpowers, survival under extreme conditions, conspiracy theories, etc. This book checked all those boxes and then some. Get out of my mind, author. Or don’t, just visit at your leisure and then spin me magnificent tales about all the things I love in fiction.
Which is to say, F yeah, I loved this book. Took me a moment to get into, the first chapter, a brutally visceral birth in a wild of twins by an inexperienced unassisted mother was…well, brutally visceral. But then once the story got going, it was difficult to impossible to put down. It just continued shifting gears and climbing to new levels of awesome the entire time. Just when you think you know what’s going on, there’s a new revelation.
Just when you think, oh, ok, this is a story of a cult survivor, a 15 year old black albino girl, who flees the only place she’s ever known to give birth and raise her twins in the woods nearby, (which by itself would have been interesting enough), she goes and integrates into the real world outside (which would have also been interesting enough), but then she begins to change into something new and difficult to fathom and develops powers that might be considered super, enters a tentative lesbian romance (because this book is just a gift that goes on giving), a romance featuring the most insistently consensual sex I’ve ever read in fiction (the author proudly showing off her woke cred) and then she and her ladylove uncover a killer government conspiracy and take the powers that be on in an epic showdown. I mean, yes, yes, most emphatic yes on all accounts. What an awesome, awesome book this turned out to be. Drama, suspense, romance, action, great memorable characters with and without superpowers…this book did it all and did it all so well, too.
I wasn’t sure about it, having never read the author. I’ve just began getting into Afrocentric speculative fiction last year thanks to its increasing proliferation and out library’s newfound commitment to digital expansion and diversity. I found some books and authors I’ve really enjoyed, P. Djeli Clark for one, but this one just blows all the rest away, setting new impossibly high standards. It was so well written, so original and inventive, so exciting, so seemingly tailored made for me and my interests. It even does the racial themes and social commentary correctly and that’s a hugely difficult task. You can’t improve upon this as an introduction to the author and I can’t wait to check out more of Solomon’s work. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.