Sorrowland

I received this ebook ARC from the publisher and Netgalley for a fair review.

This book had so many things going for it. A fascinating concept, queerness, it's occasional imagery, anger. I really loved the concept, all of it. It's the tale of Vern, a young girl in a cult devoted to the God of Cain. It's ostensibly a Black Power movement, a total excoriation of anything deemed white. They grow their own food, partake of only Black media, and are almost completely insular. The down side is that they are also conservatively, religiously patriarchal. So Vern, being upset about the disappearance of her best friend and first love, and embittered at her forced marriage to the leader of the cult (because she needs a man to help control her deviant proclivities), decides–in her pregnant state–to run away. So she does one night, leaving behind her family and all she's ever known. She gives birth in the woods and is tracked by an unknown person who leaves threatening messages in the form of bloodied baby clothes. Vern spends nearly three years in the woods.

Vern is also albino and very nearly blind. She bears twins, one Black and one albino. Howling and Feral, respectively. She runs off one day and begins an affair with a strange white woman, which will haunt her throughout the novel.

Speaking of hauntings, she has those too. Nearly everyone in the cult has night terrors, but Vern starts seeing things at any given time of day. And some of them, as the book progresses, can see her right back.

Eventually, she tries to hunt down her friend Lucy, and she winds up in the family of Lakota woman Bridget and her niece Gogo, with whom Vern begins a relationship. As things come to a head, Vern learns about who she really is, what the cult really is, and what she will become.

So again, some great elements. Cults, government conspiracy, LGBT+ character representation, Indigenous characters of importance who–spoiler–don't DIE. This book has some great things going for it! Like, really great things.

So why three stars? Because the elements of semi-magical realism don't quite work for me. Nor did Vern, really. Her children are just a little too precocious and advanced for their years. They don't talk like the kids they should be throughout the book. I didn't believe them. And, once Vern is in the woods, I was boggled. This is strangely a book based somewhat in reality, but her years in the woods are like a strange fairy tale. She wasn't so very far from civilization, but she refuses to leave the woods and becomes sort of feral? For three years? I think if the book had had a more dreamy quality that would have worked for me, but it really doesn't. So I spent most of the book not believing the story. Which made me sad, because I wanted to be invested. I wanted to really love it. There are so many awesome things going on with this book, but the execution for me just fell a little flat, a little unfulfilled; the pacing a little unbalanced. Still, some of the things going on are truly cool, and I would have liked more exploration of those things.