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.