this was a powerful and interesting read! i loved the main character and her relationship with simone. the mystery parts sometimes fell flat but I still enjoyed them. the characters were definitely a highlight!

The premise and buzz around this book had me very excited to read, and it was well written. However, I found myself bogged down by the lack of action and the hints at a mystery that wasn't solved until the end, almost as an afterthought. I didn't feel that the motives of Mama Letty made sense. One minute she was portrayed as a sweet grandmother with a prickly exterior, and another she was much darker and had been an alcoholic. They did address that somewhat, but I didn't feel that her redeeming characteristics came through enough.

I also felt like the timeframe seemed off. Avery's mother would have been born in either the late 70s or early 80s but she likes 70's music. Letty's story about meeting Ray seems like it took place in the 40s or 50s, but it was much later than that. It just didn't seem to make sense for the book to be set in current times. I would have rather had it set in the 90s, with a teen Avery learning about her family history.

I liked the relationship between Avery and Simone, but other relationships seemed to fall flat. Unfortunately this book was a miss for me.

Full disclosure, Jas is my friend and I read many early drafts of this book. This review is of the final manuscript, and while you might say OK, you're biased, why should we take you seriously as a reviewer? Well: Like I said, I've read the book before, so you'd think I'd be a little jaded. You'd think I'd skip over words or scenes I'd read before. No. No. No. I hung on every single word, and it was more moving and more beautiful than I even remembered.

WE DESERVE MONUMENTS is a pull-your-heart-out-with-its-teeth novel, and I mean that in the best way possible. Jas *goes there* in every sense; their characters feel like real people, and so their big love, aches, and humor feel real too. I got chills multiple times reading this book. I cried more than once (and at really inconvenient times too, tearing up on a treadmill, sobbing 2 minutes before a work Zoom call). I laughed a whole hell of a lot, and I swooned like crazy. Like, damn, Jas can WRITE.

Though the prose, plot, themes, and characters are all tight and expertly executed, Avery, the protagonist, carries the voice. She is one of the most relatable characters I've ever read; queer kids, Black kids, biracial kids--and everyone else--will find so much of themselves in her. She's loyal, funny, adventurous, calming, kind. She wants the world to be better and for people to heal. She wants to love sincerely and wants to let her every wall down; she just doesn't always know how. Her friendship with Jade and Simone, and then ultimately her romance with Simone, is genuine and warm. The romance is hot and tender, thrilling and complicated. It's really, really something. This is a literary couple for the ages. (If you make fan art please send it to me. A pony could probably draw better than I can or I'd do it myself).

Beyond her school social life, though, Avery has other stars in her life: her parents, especially her mother, Zora, who escaped her hometown, Bardell, after a childhood filled with her mother's abuse. But her mom, Avery's Grandmother Letty, was neglectful because of how deeply she was hurting after unthinkable tragedy. Mama Letty becomes a star, too, for Avery, for Zora, and for everyone around her. This novel allows everyone to be fully human and flawed but then takes the time to break that cycle of abuse. It meticulously heals, and wonders how everyone can keep on healing even after love is gone. Mama Letty is a complicated character, but oh my GOD will you love her. I did. She's snappy and honest. She's curmudgeonly and perpetually over it. She's everything.

If you liked HONEY GIRL, if you liked "San Junipero," if you like books that make you FEEL SOMETHING, if you like books that reckon with real life and important history and the messy, all-you-can-do-is-cry fallout of generations of racism, this book is for you. If you like queer romance that takes your breath away, found family, generations of queer Black characters, or hidden spots where you can be yourself and find yourself, this book is for you.

In the novel, the Renaissance is a local bar, tucked away in an old man's house, treasured by generations of people who are just looking for somewhere to *be.* Arnie serves hot food, stiff drinks, and songs that have folks dancing their way into the night, into the next day. It's more magic than the moon, better than Jupiter. WE DESERVE MONUMENTS feels just like that.

Jas, if you're reading this, you've really done it. Thank you for writing a story I will keep in my heart forever, for making me cry at work, for being such a magical, thoughtful, special person and writer and friend. You deserve monuments.

This was an amazing read! Jas really was able to capture the environment of the South. Avery was an extremely likable and relatable character. Avery and her family go to Georgia to take care of Avery's ill grandmother. Though she is headed into her Senior year of high school and will be leaving friends and the plans they had, Avery discovers so much more than she initially thought was possibly about herself, her family, and her future. Cloaked with generational trauma as well as a background of murder mystery, We Deserve Monuments is a book that will last for years to come.

Thank you to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and Fierce Reads for providing an Advanced Readers Copy of this book.

Avery Anderson is trying to make the best of the situation when she is uprooted from her DC hometown to a small town in Georgia, where her terminally ill grandmother lives. She doesn't know much about her grandmother as her mom has a testy relationship with her, and Avery has only met her once when she was very small and remembers small fragments of that fractious visit.

Trying to make sense of her family history and mend fences because time is running out, Avery encounters racism and prejudice due to her queer identity. She befriends her next door neighbor, Simone, who is having issues of her own, and Jade, whose mother was killed/murdered under suspicious circumstances. The more Avery uncovers, the more she discovers that coming to terms with the past is a lot harder and more complicated than it seems.

We Deserve Moments is Jas Hammonds' debut novel, and I thought the plot, characterization and atmosphere were all very involving. It will make for great discussion in teen book clubs and was an entertaining read.

This book is a monument to all the girls who don't have everything figured out, all those trying to figure out how to move forward in our current world while family secrets and other terrible history have them looking backward. It's full of pain and grief and also friendship and love and joy and I cried at all of the things. I can't believe this is a debut novel and I can't wait to read more from Hammonds. This needs to be on everyone's radar.

WE DESERVE MONUMENTS is a heartfelt, deeply honest, totally engaging exploration of identity, family, and the secrets embedded in small town communities. I was completely riveted from page one.

I loved everything about this book. It's about finding love as a queer Black teenager, trying to forge connections with family, and unpacking the truth in a small town riddled with mystery and past injustices. Just before her senior year of high school, Avery moves from DC to a small Southern town so her family can help out her grandmother, whose health has taken a turn for the worse. We see Avery try to connect with her grandmother, fight her feelings for her next-door neighbor, realize the toxic nature of the friends she left behind in DC, and make new friends, all while figuring out who she is and what she wants out of life (because she's realizing that she's not the same overachiever she once was). I loved this book for the coming-of-age aspect and the love and friendship it explores, but on top of that, there's an interesting town-wide mystery that was fun to explore too. This is a beautiful book!

I'm not sure which I liked better: the slow-burn mystery, the family drama, the friend drama, or the queer black lesbian love story. But in all, this book was fantastic.
When Avery moved to spend her senior year with her maternal grandmother, whom she barely remembers, she intends to get it and get out without making waves. However, she quickly befriends the next-door neighbor Simone Cole and her best friend Jade Oliver. Soon, Avery is asking questions and digging into both her own family's history but also the town's history.
I really loved all the different moving parts in this story. If I was pressed to choose, I think the family drama was most timely for me, and would be my favorite. Overall, this is a very well-done book.

I could not put this one down. We Deserve Monuments is the story of the Anderson family, uprooted from their DC hometown to return to the South to care for an ill grandmother. There are several family dramas in the town, and they all interweave across the painful history of the South. At the risk of spoiling the intermingled plots, I will refrain from saying more.

The pacing of the story was spot on, and the dialogue was so believable that each character had a distinct voice for me as the reader. The story works for pleasure reading, but also excerpts for bringing US History courses alike.

I believe that the story would have been even stronger without the final chapter or page explaining what happens next. I think the chapter before was a more resolute finale.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for this ARC in exchange for my opinion.

I am left pondering parts of this book. I feel that it's a good book and an important book and that it has a lot to say/teach to readers. I know that the ending revelation - that I did not see coming - left me feeling a bit down and disturbed. Not disturbed in the way that watching "Midsommar" left me disturbed (with the sense that I'd just made a huge mistake in watching that), but with a feeling of disquiet about what we find out. There's so much depth here about 1. families, 2. racism in the south and other places, 3. coming out and acceptance of who you are, 4. grief, and 5. reveling in the moment at hand. On the basis of all those things, I strongly recommend this book to all readers. Here's the one issue that kept me at arm's length throughout - Mama Letty's smoking. I have such a dislike of cigarettes and so many memories of being in a car and house with smokers - my parents - that I felt myself turned off with every mention of someone smoking or the finding of cigarette butts in the house. That might not be an issue for many other readers, but I know it got in the way of me feeling the emotions that I'm sure I was supposed to feel about Mama Letty.

Note- the only reason I would not purchase this book for my library is because the drug and alcohol use is too much for middle school.

Jas Hammonds has written an engaging story, taking a deep dive into what it can take to love and forgive our imperfect families as well as uncover and deal with family and community secrets. She pulls no punches in depicting racism and homophobia, and manages to give her queer Black girls a believable happily ever after. Highly recommend this wonderful young adult novel.

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our list for order this year and will recommend it to students.

Thanks to Netgalley for this book in exchange for my honest opinion, I recieved this book. I was not really a fan of this book, it just didn't capture my attention.

I absolutely loved this book from start to finish. The character of Avery and her journey though her family’s experience in the modern South was powerful. I wish it was even longer. I wanted to spend more time with these characters especially Grandma Letty. Thank you for this advanced copy!

This was a fantastic contemporary entry that feels comfortable yet fresh. Avery is a fantastic lead and I loved the way Hammonds developed her relationship with her family. I thought that the romance line with Simone was a cherry on top for an overall substantive and moving story.

We Deserve Monuments is a gorgeous, meandering story about family, love, racism, and finding oneself. Avery is a biracial, openly queer girl who ends up moving with her parents to Bardell, Georgia, a small town in the Deep South, after her grandmother falls ill. There is a great deal of tension between Avery's mother and grandmother, who is as cantankerous a character as I've ever encountered. Avery intends to get in and get out of Bardell as quickly and silently as possible, but that's not how things go down. Instead, she meets beautiful Simone and her best friend Jade. The three quickly fall in step until things between Avery and Simone simmer over into something more, jeopardizing the tentative friendship.

While Avery and Simone are certainly a sweet couple, the real love story at the center of the book is between Avery and her grandmother (and, to a certain extent, her mother). As Avery learns more about Mama Letty and the death of her grandfather, she also begins to discover more about herself and what she truly wants from her life.

Highly recommended for teen libraries and book clubs, and especially for fans of books like The Last True Poets of the Sea and When You Were Everything.