Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishers for this Advanced Readers Copy of The Reformatory by Tananarive Due!

Told with such a voice of intensity, I ate this book up. Taking place in the 1950s Florida, Due brings a mix of the injustice of treatment of Black people, their needless suffering at the hands of the Klan and segregation, with this really compelling element of supernatural and power.

When twelve year old Robert is sentenced to a six month stint in a segregated reformatory for defending his older sister Gloria from a white boy with intent to harm her, he feels scared and lost. The warden is an evil man with the express desire to not only abuse Black children but has a predilection for more disgusting behavior.

Robert, having always been gifted with the ability to see haints (ghosts) begins seeing them frequently at the reformatory. Soon, he is wrapped up in a whole mess with the warden extorting him for his abilities.

Meanwhile, Gloria is trying to free her little brother while being attacked by the Klan who want her dead.

This was such a powerful read. I loved the characters and the writing. I thought the haints and their plight incredibly intriguing. This was just all around a great read!

In 1950, twelve year old Robbie Stephens Jr and his sister Gloria live in Gracetown, Florida. Jim Crow laws in the southern states have marginalised African Americans by denying them equal opportunities in education, health care and employment. Violence was rife with mobs and the KKK terrorizing Black communities, lynching those who spoke out and burning their houses and businesses.

Robbie and Gloria’s father Robert Stephens Snr is wanted by the Sherriff and the KKK for voicing his desire to unionize African American workers and has fled for his life to Chicago, leaving his children in the care of Miss Lottie Powell, Robbie’s godmother. However, when Robbie defends his sister from the unwanted advances of a white landowner’s son by kicking him in his knee, the Sherriff sees a way of getting at Robert Snr through his family and Robbie is sentenced by a judge to six months at the notorious Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory.

The Reformatory is no ordinary school for boys. Segregated into white and black campuses, the white boys receive a good education while the black boys only attend classes in the afternoon and are expected to work in the fields, foundry or butchery in the morning. The school is run by Superintendent Fenton J. Haddock, a sociopath who loves nothing better than punishing boys, both white and black, but especially the black boys, who are beaten for the slightest misdemeanour. While the beatings are excessive and severe, sending boys to the infirmary with flayed backs, Haddock has worse punishments in store for repeat offenders. It’s no surprise then that boys have died at the Reformatory and that their ghosts remain to haunt the place.

When Haddock discovers that Robbie can see the ghosts, he finds a special use for him. However, Robbie not only sees the ghosts of boys who died at the R1eformatory but sees the torture they underwent first. He realises his only way to escape Haddock’s attention is to get out as soon as possible, something his sister and Miss Lottie are also working on. The only problem is boys who try to escape are hunted down by vicious dogs and end up dead.

This is truly a horror story and it’s not the ghosts that are the most horrific element. What it was like to live in Jim Crow America and experience racism, injustice, fear and violence every day is vividly depicted. Based on a real reformatory, the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, it tells a horrendous tale of racism, torture, abuse and murder by those who ran it. Despite several investigations during its 111 year history, the Dozier School wasn’t closed down by the State until 2011. Tananarive Due is not only a popular writer of speculative fiction, but also co-wrote with her mother ‘Freedom in the Family’ about her mother’s struggle for civil rights in 1960s America, so she is perfectly placed to combine these two genres into a historical fiction novel full of aggrieved ghosts. Superbly written and paced this is gripping and suspenseful novel of racial injustice.

This book will send chills up and down your spine. No twelve-year-old boy should be taken from his family and placed in The Reformatory. The place where stories are told that will cause nightmares. Boys' behavior will instantly change when the school crosses any adults' lips. The sheer number of stories that have leaked under the fence makes you unable to doubt the amount of extreme physical and mental abuse, racism, rape, and the list goes on. Tananarive Due based this book on the Dozier School for Boys. I will let you go down the rabbit hole of google for this one. It will make your heart clinch and tears well in your eyes.

Robert Stephens Juniors last few years have been incredibly hard. First, he lost his mama to cancer and his father ran out of town. Racial issues are at its peak, leaving everyone holding their breath, and trying not to catch the eye of the local sheriff. Robert and his sister Gloria are on their own trying to make it. When one of the local neighbors (a white man) starts causing trouble with his sister. Which leads to a kick that sends Robert to the Gracetown School for Boys for six months. As soon as he steps foot on the property the ghosts fill his every sense. Something horrifying has been occurring on the grounds. Robert needs to keep his head low and out of trouble until his time is up.

This story sucks you in. It is a startling notion to have racism and details of what happened to the boys at this school through ghosts. The first half was a bit slow moving for me. But the second half was insanely intense. You will be constantly watching over your shoulder. Looking out for both ghosts and the living. Thank you to Tananarive Due and Gallery Books for my gifted copy.

THE REFORMATORY is a tale that blends American history, racism, ghost stories, and phenomenal writing that results in a heartbreaking story that is unfortunately mostly true.

Robbie and his older sister Gloria are walking one day, not long after the death of their mother. On their walk they run into the son of one of the most powerful, (white), men in their Florida town. The boy makes a move towards Gloria, and Robbie kicks him in the shin. Before you know it, Robbie is dragged before a judge and sentenced to 6 months at the reformatory. Robbie's life will never be the same. Robbie can see ghosts, you see, and the reformatory is full of them. (Though he calls them haints.) Will Robbie get out of the school/prison alive? Will the ghosts there leave Robbie alone? Will Gloria succeed in her strenuous efforts to get him released? You will have to read this to find out!

Based on the story of the Dozier School for Boys, this book is set in Florida and partially details the events that went on there that resulted in the death of dozens upon dozens of boys and young men. Boys in dryers, boys beaten to death, buried in the dead of night, and so on.

Tananarive Due takes all of this horrible truth and weaves into it a type of ghost story. Several ghost stories, in fact. I mean, just imagine how many ghosts there would be in a place like that. Robbie's story broke me many times over, but Gloria's story was also compelling. Her efforts to free her brother end up drawing attention to their family, even more attention than the fact that her father had to flee the area because he was trying to organize a union. Gloria's family isn't loved by the rich whites and businessmen of the area and these people make that fact known. Over and over again.

Due's writing is extraordinary. I couldn't be further away from such an experience, (being born white in the northeast), but she brought it home to me. I felt Gloria's and Robbie's feelings as if they were my own. Gloria's desperate fight to bring her brother home. Robbie's panic, fear and desperation when he sees the warden heading his way. I felt these emotions deep down in my very soul. This book left me shook. I'm still shook a week after finishing this haunting tale.

Other than the fact that I think this book was just a smidge too long, I enjoyed it for many reasons. These stories need to be told, these events have to be dragged out of the darkness and examined, lest we make the same mistakes in the future. (Though sometimes I wonder if we will EVER learn.) With racial hatred making a rise in this country yet again, (or maybe it never went away), books like this are important. The fact that it's so effortlessly weaved into a ghost story makes it more palatable for some, but I was drawn to it because of Due's writing. It's evocative, it's emotional and it's downright appalling.

As such, I highly recommend THE REFORMATORY. Just brace yourself because the picture it paints is not pretty. Available this Halloween, what a perfect date for this important, compelling tale!

*Thank you to the publisher, NetGalley and the author for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*

I think I was reading two different books at the same time. That's how I felt. One was about the treatment of black children in a reformatory. The other was about a kid who could see ghosts. They were forced together in a way that made me feel like they were not supposed to be together. I enjoyed both stories, as horrific as they sometimes got.

This one is getting some unfair panning for not being the horror book that it isn't meant to be. How would you judge the same story set in Auschwitz/Nazi Europe would be my thought on setting more accurate expectations.

The draw here is the characters. They are fleshed out quickly, and ones met for mere moments stick with you. The narrative use of the supernatural lets Due pack a lot more into the story than Robbie alone. Robbie's witnessing of the haints works beautifully. The attempts to share historical asides through Gloria's ability to see futures, not so much. These items felt clunkily inserted, which is small and could easily be overlooked.

The true shortcoming is that there were so many stories unfinished / characters are just dropped. The ending felt too pat and rushed to a happily ever after. What happens with the reformatory? What about the characters wound up in Robert & Gloria's story? It's hard to elaborate here without context, but many central characters are just dropped. The lead up to the escape attempt didn't match what happened in when it got there. What about the warden's personal property that was so incredibly important for the whole book?

Overall, it felt like the meme about running out of time on your test with the half-drawn horse. I can't decide if I'm hoping a new book is to come with the rest of the story or not.

Set in 1950s Florida, The Reformatory is mix of ghostly and human horrors that will leave you rooting for Robert Stephens, Jr., the 12-year-old protagonist. When Robert is unjustly sent to the Gracetown School for Boys, also known as The Reformatory, he quickly must figure out who to trust and how to stay out of harm’s way. Grim with a glimmer of hope, this historical horror story has a few surprises that you keep you reading.

Haunting and well-written, The Reformatory is bound to have readers question everything within its pages. I was pulled in from the very first pages. It's still sticking with me well after I put it down.

Set in 1950 Jim Crow Florida, where the brutal realities of systemic racism have literally contaminated the soil, The Reformatory is both haunting and compelling. This is historical horror at its most effective, where the history—and its legacy—is more terrifying, more disturbing than the horror, and every choice, every action, every decision is fraught.

If you've wondered if this book lives up to the hype—and I know there's been quite a bit of hype—then stop wondering and start reading. This is the kind of fiction that leaves its readers changed.

The Reformatory gives you a different kind of horror. Not only does the failed systematic social justice haunt you at this time but the pure unsettling atmosphere of the institution that knows no honor soaks your skin and bone with pure rage. Highly recommend for anyone who is willing to dig deeper than a surface level of horror!

Sixteen year old Gloria and twelve year old Robbie Stephens, Jr. are living on their own in 1950 Gracetown, Florida after their widower father flees for Chicago after being falsely accused of raping a white woman. When Robbie is sentenced to 6 months at the Reformatory school for kicking a white boy while defending his sister's honor, Gloria springs into action to get her brother released ASAP.

This book is an emotional gut punch. We've all learned about the rampant racism thar went on in the Jim Crow era, but to see it play out in this book, despite it being fiction, takes it yo a whole new level. This book will suck you in and make you want to keep turning the pages all while making you really think about the things these characters and real people went through in this time. It will make you angry and pull on your emotions. Which is how you know this is an extremely well written book. Be warned though, just because this book has hints in it, doesn't mean it's a horror novel, buy it is a novel of horrors, both psychological and physical in the way young Robbie is treated, as well as the other Black characters in the book.

The characters aren't necessarily fully fleshed out, but you get enough to get behind them and hope the best for them as they try to survive each day and set things right for Robbie. The pacing is also a little slow at times, but it wasn't enough that I didn't want to put it down. I'm sure I'll be thinking about this one for quite a while.

My thanks to Gallery Books, author Tananarive Due,and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

A haunting young adult book well worth your time. It marries so many large themes about racism, the way both trauma and the past haunt us, with a supernatural thread that doesn’t seem the least bit out of place; it serves to only reiterate the themes of racialized trauma and abuse.

Although this book is billed as a ghost story, it is much more in the historical fiction genre with some ghosts along the way. It’s a good story overall, but the pacing is uneven and some key characters are under-developed.

THE REFORMATORY, by Tananarive Due, takes place in 1950, Florida, in the midst of the extreme racism and Jim Crow laws governing the South. I knew going into this that it would be a tremendous read, but even I hadn't been prepared for the horrors on the page. Learning about the abuse, torture, and practices that POC faced in our land is entirely different than immersing yourself in a novel--where you feel the characters and what they go through.

Robbie is twelve year old boy, unfairly sent to a boys' Reformatory for instinctively protecting his older sister, Gloria. Knowing that this "school" is more likely a death sentence, or at least, place of torture and pain for any child--let alone one who's father is wanted for crimes he ran off from--Gloria rallies everyone she can to try and free her brother. Of course, in this prejudiced time, there is nothing people can do.

There are spirits of those that died (and SO MANY did) under vicious circumstances at the Reformatory, and Robbie has always been able to see ghosts. Is this any kind of help to a young man against the tyranny of those in charge, and even the other boys sentenced there?

This novel was so emotionally charged that I doubt anyone could tear themselves away once they started it. Many of the scenes were so horrific that it was difficult to believe it was only a book . . . because things like those depicted DID actually occur. The subject material here is heavy, and more so when you realize the reality of the situation it was based on.

Recommended.

The Reformatory is based on the Dozier School for Boys and set in 1950 during the Jim Crow times in, Florida

Robbie Stephens Jr. is only 12 and is sent to the reformatory after defending his sister from a predatory wealthy boy. Because he has the ability to see spirits he is able to see the truth behind the reformatory. He know that there are many boys who are just...missing.

His sister is working against the clock to free him while Robbie does the best he can to stay alive.
This is a haunting truth based story that you are not soon to forget!.#gallery #TheReformatory #Tananarivedue

The Reformatory is a book that is a horror inside a horror inside another horror. It is a book rooted in the Jim Crow era of the American South. It is historical fiction while also being both a social and paranormal horror novel. It is emotional, triggering, maddening, and hopeful. From the immediate beginning it sets a tone of somberness and hopefulness that doesn’t let you go until the very end of the book.

In Gracetown, Florida (a real town by the way), a twelve year-old boy named Robert Stephens Jr lives with his sister Gloria in their 90 year-old shack that was built by their grandfather. It has been about a year since their mother died of cancer and almost as much time since their father escaped to Chicago. You see Robert Stephens Sr is something of a troublemaker. He’s a Black man in the south who believes he’s actually a human being with rights in the Jim Crow era of the American South. That is enough to get not only a man killed but the Black side of town burned to the ground. (If you have never heard of it, I suggest researching the Tulsa Massacre for example of a real life assault.) So, Gloria and Robbie, as he likes to be called by his family, are basically on their own. They have Mizz Lottie, an octogenarian acting as her father’s adoptive aunt/mother. But, as she stated many times in the book, Robbie is Gloria’s responsibility even though Gloria is only sixteen. If you ask me, they are both their father’s responsibility. However, I find it hard to blame a man on the run for his life from people who kill him but hesitate to injure a dog. So, Robbie and Gloria are alone with the heavy burden of their family troubles when one more unnecessary circumstance gets thrown their way when Robbie has a run in with his family’s former slave owner/master. This leads Robbie to a stint in the Reformatory, a state school for both white and ‘colored’ boys who break the law. Although Robbie’s sentence is brief, the history and gossip surrounding the Reformatory makes it clear that any amount of time spent inside its grounds is too much time.

This book explores many different themes. It includes social horror and paranormal horror while also serving as historical fiction. The social horror and historical fiction aspects of this book are explained and explored through the Jim Crow south time period the novel is set in. Absolutely zero punches are pulled as far as the environment. When the book starts, you know you are in the Jim Crow south and are never allowed to forget it. You see the world through Robbie and Gloria’s eyes as they navigate their land mind of an existence. You can also feel how they are treated as less than people by the white citizens of Gracetown. However, you can also feel the love and unity that surrounds them by the black citizens in Gracetown. The author does a great job of setting up that divide and showing that it doesn’t just exist as a line separated physically by railroad tracks.

This book also explores the concept of decades long atrocities and how they poison a whole entire community from the soil up. Gracetown is a town of anything but Grace. In the book it is described as a place where haints/ghosts roam the land because so many people were killed unjustly or just flat out murdered.

Bubbling anger from mistreatment, dismissal, and flat out racist dogma is also explored throughout this book. Both Gloria and Robbie experience anger at various parts. They are angry at their father for leaving. They are angry at the racist community they live in for keeping them in a constant state of fear and anxiety. They are also angry because of the many unjust and unfair things that occur to them after Robbie is arrested and sent to the Reformatory, things they can do nothing about because the law was not written to help them. Even if it was, who would enforce it in a town covered in black blood?

This book was both a joy to read and an emotional anchor. It is satisfying to read a book that pulls no punches when it comes to atrocities in America in the Jim Crow era, but also disheartening because I can feel both the anger and defeat at knowing nothing could be done about it.

The horror in this book is palpable, and it will sit with you long after you have finished the book.

I feel compelled to mention that Mizz Lottie was my favorite character. She is a true auntie, a pillar of strength, an emotional shoulder, but also a person that takes no crap from anyone and will push you into doing the right thing no matter what you think because auntie said so.

Thank you to @netgalley and @sagapressbooks for providing me with this ARC. All opinions are my own, and I leave this review voluntarily.

"The Reformatory" is a gripping ghost story with non-stop suspense and a lot of ugly history that the State of Florida would like to prevent you from learning in school. "Haints" are the least of Robbie Stephens' problems when he's sent to a sadistic juvenile prison for a trumped-up offense against a white boy in the rural Florida of 1950. The town's white power brokers want to use him as a pawn to bring his father out of hiding; Klansmen and police alike are gunning for Robert Senior because of his work organizing millworkers and registering Black voters. Meanwhile, Robbie's teenage sister and her 80-year-old godmother are discovering that even NAACP lawyers aren't a match for the racist judicial system. Freeing Robbie will require supernatural intervention.

I stayed up late reading this book even though it gave me nightmares. The author doesn't shy away from recognizing the sexual sadism component in white subjugation of Black youth (though never in graphic detail). I wanted an even bloodier and more comprehensive payback for the antagonists, but maybe that would have been ahistorical wish-fulfillment. The novel was inspired by a real-life ancestor of the author who died in the boys' prison.

I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was looking forward to reading this book until I started reading this book. I only made it 10% of the way in and had to experience at least 5 hard-R N-words. Not unexpected I guess from a story set in the Jim Crow south but goodness. And I am a native Floridian so I am very familiar with the Dozier School for Boys (my sister-in-law worked there as a mental health professional and her husband worked there as a guard!). I've seen it on the news, I've kept up with the exhumation of bodies and the research being done by the various Florida univerisities.

When I got 10% in I realized that I just couldn't suffer through another story like this. I've read The Nickle Boys by Colson Whitehead (another Dozier inspired story) and A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power (an indigenous school story) and there's just only so much suffering I can hold in my brain on these prior stories and the news alone. If I'm going to choose to read a book in my free time, I'm at the point now where this kind of book is simply not for me.

If you have never heard of the Dozier School for Boys and want to learn more about the schools we have forced children into to murder them or erase their history and culture, this book may be for you (and the other ones I mentioned). But for me, it was a swing and a miss.

I'm speechless. I truly don't know how to review this profound and moving book rooted in so much truth. This book is so terribly sad and hard to read, but it is essential that people pick this up and see the remants of these horrors still alive and well today.