5/5 stars only because I can't go higher!

Rivers Solomon has blown me away yet again. I have never read Call of the Wild and the mystery section in our bookstore is the one I know the least about - I am a scaredy-cat. I had to read Sorrowland very slowly, supplementing it with lots of middle grade books to keep me from descending into the darkness and horror the book evokes. 

And I adored it.

Rivers Solomon's writing is grounded, clear and unabashful as fae indicts the world (and the country) we live in, as fae depicts Vern's journey of unlearning shame around sex and desire, and a scene that especially stuck with me - an orgy among: two queer men who have been dead from AIDS-related illness for decades, a lesbian woman-creature, and her girlfriend who's called in from a gas station restroom. Fae is audacious, and it works so well and ends up feeling incredibly real. 

The mystery kept me up late many nights while reading - where is Vern coming from? Where can she go? Who and what is she becoming? Most of the twists came as complete shocks to me, but made so much sense when thinking back. And the world Vern inhabits felt so real that I could almost feel the fire at the hearth, or the cold in the forest.

Pick this book up if you like horror, speculative fiction (leaning towards sci-fi and vaguely modern times), if a monstrous and #OwnVoices Black and queer survival story with no small share of fighting back sounds intriguing. I've already bought my copy!

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC.