This debut book is a compilation of pieces that give the reader a feel for what it is like to grow up as an African-American in the United States. The longest piece is the title one and takes place in a country that has been torn apart and people set adrift to find supplies and refuge. Da'Naisha, who is a descendant of Sally Hemming and Thomas Jefferson, takes to the road with a group of people that includes her grandmother who raised her as well as Knox, her white lover and Duncan, her first lover. The group ends up at Monticello where Da'Naisha worked one summer as an intern while attending University of Virginia. The group settles in there but there are others on the roads and organized groups of men who are burning houses and killing black folks. This piece is a novella and takes up the majority of the book.

Other pieces are included. One tells of a professor who as a sociologist, compares the life path of his own unacknowledged son with that of white boys of the same economic background. Another is the story of a woman who drops out of college after going abroad and meeting a photographer. They marry and soon the woman is left with children to raise and a husband who is rarely there, taking assignments all over the world. Yet another piece tells of growing up black and attending school and how that is different from the academic experiences of other ethnic groups.

This book has won several awards and is an outstanding start for the career of this writer. I listened to this book and the various narrators added much to the stories of the lives of African Americans and their experiences in our country. African Americans should find relevance in this work and those of other ethnicities will start to understand on a basic level the everyday experiences of others. This book is recommended for readers of multicultural works and literary fiction.

I will not be publishing my review online simply because I don’t want to publicly give it a less than 4 star review. The stories themselves were excellent but I found the audiobook awkward at times. Possibly because if the short story format? Possibly because of some of the narrators themselves. I ended up DNFing the audiobook and waited for the print edition to come out to finish the book, which was an interesting read and I will recommend it to my customers but since this is is supposed to be a review of the audiobook I can only give it 3 stars at most.

Do you enjoy short stories?
My Monticello is a collection of stories centered on racism, concluding with a novella that gives the book its title. In that dystopian tale, a small group of people take refuge in Monticello when the world is falling apart. Together they face the ghosts of the plantation’s past as they take a stand and fight for their lives. The novella is so good that it has already been tapped by @netflix as a series.

I took my time with this, letting each story sink in on its own before moving in to the next. These are all thought provoking and unique, and the writing is incredible.

I went into this thinking it was a short story collection, which it isn't really. It's a couple of short stories followed by a novella. Unfortunately this affected my experience of the longer piece because I kept waiting for it to end. If I had read this as a physical or ebook with a table of contents at the front I would have had different expectations going in. The stories themselves were well-written and had interesting themes, though I don't know if they'll stick with me.

The audio version had me from the first story narrated by LaVar Burton. The title novella is by far the most compelling in the collection. It is unsettling as it mirrors what is happening right now. Da’Naisha and her family flee when white supremacists start setting fires to the neighborhood. They find refuge at Monticello, Jefferson’s home. Shi is a descendant of Sally Hemmings and Jefferson. Having different narrators for each of the novellas in the audio version helps to delineate the stories and make each one powerful on its own.

3.5 stars!
A short story collection that focuses on black protagonists as they navigate their realities. The namesake story follows a young woman who is Thomas Jefferson’s descendant. They are forced to seek refuge after their homes are attacked by white supremacists in Jefferson’s old plantation.

I loved how these short stories trace the truth of racism and alienation that still exists in society today with black lives. Monticello was masterful and fully sucked me in! However, I found the other stories to be less memorable. The writing style was very melodic and I gave my rating almost based solely upon Monticello. The ending was perfect. Thanks to @librofm and @henryholt for my review copies.

This was a unique and profound collection. Each story was wholly original and unlike anything I had listened to before.
My favorite was the first story - maybe because the live performance was extremely powerful!

I really appreciated the short stories and novella included within this book. They're masterfully crafted, and I loved that Levar Burton was one of the narrators (although the others weren't as strong). I found these stories to be quite compelling (although frequently heartbreaking). As an educator, could see these stories being paired with ones from "The Office of Historical Corrections".

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is one of the best audiobooks of all time! This collection was so theatric but devastating at the same time. It explored racism in all of the stories but at the same time move complex themes like gender discrimination, white violence, family expectations, and dreams. This collection is unforgettable

'My Monticello' by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is gift to the nation. I put off writing a review well after I finished listening to the audiobook because I wanted to make sure I did my best to give it the justice it so mightily deserves. As a Virginia resident who has visited Monticello several times, I was especially fascinated with the title novella which centers around a University of Virginia student named Da'Naisha, who also happens to be from the lineage of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. Unwarranted and overt hostilities towards people of color has become so out of control a group gathers and runs for their lives to Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's favorite home) for safety. Da'Naisha is pregnant and has a frail grandmother she is trying to protect while trying to rally her group together to fend off the unprovoked attacks from a legion of out of control racists. Sadly, as I listened to the desperation of the people in 'My Monticello' I thought about the racism still happening all around us today, and how very far we still need to go for it to be eradicated for good.

Other novellas included are "Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse" which discusses to striving to have something that makes you feel safe (such as a home) as a Black person can stem from a false sense of reality in an America that is still (in 2021) overrun with racism. 'Control Negro' is about a man who is closely observing his son with the goal of ascertaining whether or not it is possible for a Black man to overcome the stigma of racism if he i(barring skin color) is identical in every other way to the innumerable "everyman" U.S. white males. Strong commentary on institutional racism in all its glory.

The narration performed by Aja Naomi King; January LaVoy, Landon Woodson; LeVar Burton; Ngozi Anyanwu; and Tomiwa Edun is exquisite. The passion exuded from each of these exceptionally gifted voices brought genuine tears to my eyes as I listened to the pain and plights of every single character. 'My Monticello' should be on the required listening/reading lists in high schools throughout the nation. Prioritizing time for open minded and informed discussions about race is the only way we are going to have hope for moving forward and becoming truly united as a human race.

With much appreciation to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the audiobook down in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. #NetGalley #MacmillanAudio #MyMonticello #JocelynNicoleJohnson

Wow just wow. That is fantastic what’s the writing in reminds me a lot of Dracula in the style not in the story itself.

The narration in this is amazing all of the different narrators are just incredible

And I totally fan girl over LeVar Burton I’m not even gonna lie.
you know super nostalgia because group with Reading Rainbow and his voice reading stories to me and now he’s doing it again as an adult and just happiness and pure happiness

It’s creepy and fascinating and it just draws you in I know I want to buy this book for like every member of my family because it’s just my god it’s so good

Cannot recommend enough get this boo

This is one of the most powerful short story collections I’ve ever read. Full stop.

This book is made up of a handful of incredible short stories and one longer novella. Although the stories are unrelated, they’re each linked by racial struggles, with other issues like violence, gender discrimination, poverty, and class woven into them as well.

I listened to the audiobook, which I think had to have brought the book to an even higher level, especially with readers like Levar Burton and Aja Naomi King. 😍 I whole-heartedly recommend listening to this one.

I simply could not put this one down. The very first story about professor that runs a racial experiment of sorts on his own son left me with my jaw just hanging open. PLUS that’s the one Levar Burton narrates so my little Reading Rainbow brain is straight up trained to be obsessed with anything he reads.

My favorite of the stories was the longer one that lends its name to the title of this book - My Monticello. When the town they live in begins to crumble amidst white supremacist violence, terrible storms, and electricity outages, a group of neighbors led by Da’Naisha escape into the countryside, eventually making their way over to Monticello. Da’Naisha used to work at Monticello during her summers as a student and feels an inexplicable link to the home since she’s a direct descendant of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. The group beds down in the historic home as they attempt to survive the unrest. I still can’t stop thinking about it.

This book is filled with strong writing, clever observations, and such unique plots. Johnson deserves so much praise for this collection! I cannot recommend this one enough, you guys. Pick this one up.

Thanks to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for an advance copy of this audiobook!

Chalk this one up to the danger of high expectations, maybe: I was extremely excited about this one, but ultimately found it just a little bit disappointing. I love a story collection, and I am a great admirer of several of the folks who blurbed this book. I was also excited about it because of the premise of the novella, which sounded smart and action packed -- in fact I was just telling a colleague about it yesterday, and their reaction was, how could that story not be great, it sounds great!

I think the first thing that really went wrong for me in the book was LeVar Burton's reading of the first story. Inexplicably, it's a live reading, which to my mind doesn't add much, because the audience hardly reacts, but the live context causes the pacing to be a little off, some words to be unclear, and the audio quality for that story to be a little hissy/suboptimal (as opposed to a studio-recorded book, anyway.). Also, Burton's reading just really did not work for me in a big way; it was too over the top, and I found myself wishing I was reading the story instead of listening to it, because the delivery was distractingly overstated. The story itself seemed to me way better than its presentation. So, big miss for me right out of the gate.

(The later readers were all great, I thought!)

The next few stories were interesting enough but kind of had gimmicky literary things about them that were unnecessary, in my mind -- two stories are told in a kind of instructive second person (you do this, then you do that...) and in the middle there's a story told from the plural first person. I love a gimmick that's well executed, but this was a little formally show-y; I thought the stories were strong enough not to need the gimmicks, or maybe just that the less-usual narration styles did not really enhance the stories in a meaningful way -- or maybe just three narrative gimmicks in a row felt like a lot!

The novella is definitely the strongest story in the book, and I enjoyed it the most, although I did check my watch more often than I expected to -- the hours I spent with this collection felt way longer than the running time, I am sorry to say.

But I still think the log line for the novella sounds fantastic, and I would absolutely read another collection from this author, because even though this one did not quite work for me, I am interested in what else she has to say!

An outstanding audiobook with a full cast of great narrators. My favorites were Something Sweet on Our Tongues (a beautiful love song to black childhood) and Control Negro.

I have reviewed the text of this book elsewhere (forthcoming in the Harvard Review), here I want to mention that the audiobook is exceptional. The first story is read by Levar Burton who adds a depth to the story that I did not get when I read the text. His ability to convey the humor and irony as well as the pathos of the story is tremendous. The other readers are not as strong as he is, but I very much admire having a diverse group of narrators in a book where there are a diversity of perspectives. Excellent work!

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s MY MONTICELLO is a revelation.

“A young woman descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings driven from her neighborhood by a white militia. A university professor studying racism by conducting a secret social experiment on his own son. A single mother desperate to buy her first home even as the world hurtles toward catastrophe. Each fighting to survive in America.”

These are some of the characters in the novellas that form the masterpiece that is MY MONTICELLO.

Wildly inventive in structure and heart piercing with her prose, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson has delivered a collection of stories I found wholly consuming. Her name will, no doubt, be among the greats like Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.

I started by listening to the audiobook and then I re-read her words in print because I wanted to savor them once more.

The narration on the audiobook was just unparalleled. I cannot emphasize enough how enhanced that listening experience was by the precision and performances of the various narrators which include Aja Naomi King; January LaVoy; Landon Woodson; LeVar Burton; Ngozi Anyanwu; Tomiwa Edun. An embarrassment of riches, this audiobook was the audio equivalent of seeing a Broadway play.

A cultural requisite, you simply must read!

Publication Date: October 5th, 2021

Thank you to @netgalley @Macmillan.Audio and @HenryHolt for the ARC and audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

#MyMonticello #NetGalley #books #bookstagram #literaryfiction #bookclubreads #bookclub #booklover #reading #ilovebooks #currentlyreading #bookreview #book #bookstagrammer #audiobooks

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson's debut is profoundly powerful, fresh, searing and a relevant, albeit jarringly honest look at systemic racism in the United States, and in My Monticello, what the world could look like in the future based upon disturbing events in recent history, namely the Charlottesville, VA.
I listened to this on audio and was particularly intrigued by the narrative regarding the impact and lineage connection between our protagonist and Thomas Jefferson (anyone who is a Hamilton fan will undoubtedly have songs seep into your mind while reading references to Jefferson & his estate).
It is apocalyptic scary in that this group of people are hiding and fighting for their lives- one that is in the future and fictitious, but so rooted in reality its so deeply disturbing.
I went into this not knowing there was a collection of stories, so I was a bit confused at first and wish the cover noted that that. "Control Negro" the first story was an imaginative, Twilight Zone-esque tale of a social/intellectual experiment that ultimately proves how Black men are gripped, shaped, and hurt by racism.
Narration EXCELLENT- Aja Naomi King nails it (as always).. and the opener as read by Levar Burton is extremely memorable.

IMO, 2021 is really turning out to be the year of the short story collection. “My Monticello” is a timely and expertly narrated collection that centers around identity, race, and the current American political crisis. I would absolutely recommend this collection for those who enjoy dystopian fiction, or otherwise known in today’s climate, realistic fiction. The audiobook narration is one of the best I’ve listened to and the stories were all engaging and/or terrifying.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ALC.

Recommended for: those who enjoy dystopian fiction and social commentary.

Content Warnings: Police Violence, Racism, Microaggresions, Death of a Parent, Racism, Sexual Abuse, Mental health, Self Harm

The story starts before the story in Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s debut novel, My Monticello. A series of essays and short stories set the scene for the reader to understand the reality of a Black American today. The short stories, read by various actors, explain a reality most white Americans understand. Fellow citizens don’t enjoy the same freedoms, securities, and experiences based on skin color.

Once a listener understands the social context, the story of My Monticello makes tragic sense.

Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, leads a group of neighbors to safety during a violent overthrow of society by white militia. Mysterious storms and power outages lead up to the turbulent night when Da’Naisha drives the group to Monticello for safety.

An older white couple, an immigrant family, Da’Naisha’s white boyfriend, and other Black neighbors make up the rag-tag group seeking asylum at the entrance to Monticello. One of the guards joins forces with the group and the refugees set out creating a new society in a refuge as old as the country and its prejudices.

The dystopian setting raises more questions than answers. Could a group of white militia overrun the country? How would minorities fare? What would happen to women? Does our country hover on the brink of social disaster? If so, what can we do to change the course of history?

Thought-provoking, chilling, and honest, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson creates a world and reality that every citizen should sit up and listen to. Especially those wanting to understand antiracism and the role of an ally.

As an educator, I wouldn’t recommend the entire book to any but juniors or seniors due to the violence, sexual content, and language. But anyone over 16 should listen to (or read) My Monticello.

My Monticello, by debut author Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is a collection of short stories and a mini novella. The individual stories are linked by their themes, of violence, race, home, gender (and maybe, love), and by their setting, the state of Virginia.

The titular mini novella, My Monticello, represents the bulk of the book. In the story, a group of people (of all ages), most of whom are black and / or brown, are chased from their homes by extreme right nationalists. They are led by Da'Naisha Hemmings Love, to refuge at Monticello, the plantation that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Coincidentally, Da'Naisha is a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson. The group takes refuge on the plantation for 19 days.

I was unaware of Thomas Jefferson's history before picking up My Monticello. A (quick) search online revealed the following: Thomas Jefferson inherited Monticello (plantation), along with all of its slaves, from his father in law, John Wales. John had a daughter, Sally Hemmings, with his slave, Betty Hemmings. So, Thomas Jefferson's wife, Martha Whales and Sally Hemmings, were half sisters, but Sally was 14 years Martha's junior.

It has been proven that Thomas Jefferson went on to have six children with Sally Hemmings, four of whom survived into adulthood. Sally's children were emancipated, although, they were not allowed to reside in Virginia. Sally was never freed. This, was Sally Hemmings' "Monticello".

Getting back to the mini novella, as I said, the leader of the group taking refuge at Monticello, Da'Naisha is a direct descendant of the Sally Hemmings referred to above. She, Da'Naisha, is making a 'home" (temporary as it may be), in Monticello, her slave ancestor's home. Da'Naisha actually worked as a summer intern at Monticello, but in that position, she did not work in the main house. Returning to Monticello now, in order to escape the violence against her people, stirs particularly painful emotions within Da'Naisha.

This is a very interesting and timely book. The stories on the audiobook, each have their own narrator. The first story, Control Negro, is narrated by LeVar Burton, and it is powerful and moving. The novella is expertly narrated by Aja Naomi King. Although the audiobook is excellent, I suggest accompanying this with a hard copy of the book. #MyMonticello has already been optioned by Netflix for a mini series.

Thank you #netgalley and @macmillanaudio for the audiobook, in return for my honest review. #5stars