I'll be recommending this everywhere - it's as much a solid book of historical fiction as it is horror, and Due's research and family knowledges shines through all over. Very tense, more because of the human monsters than the haints! The ending was completely satisfying and a perfect capstone.

Twelve-year-old Robert made a split-second decision to protect his sister, and he ended up getting unfairly sentenced to six months in a reformatory school for boys in 1930s Florida. Beyond the threats of other boys and violent adults, he'll also have to face the haints of boys that died on the school's campus. Can Robert's sister bring him home before it's too late?

This is a truly fantastic historical horror novel inspired by Tananarive Due's own family in the Jim Crow South. It's a haunting story with danger lurking in every corner, both from humans and the paranormal. There's a cinematic quality to Due's writing that makes it really jump off the page. This is a must-read for horror fans.

Tananarive Due's writing is yet again magic - she has a true gift for original stories that stay with you long after you've finished. Her short stories are magnificent, unique and often haunting ,and this novel is no different.

Some books are just hard to read. Not because they are poorly written or uninteresting. Books like this one are difficult for readers due to their intensity and unsettling content. This book takes place in Jim Crow south and discusses some of the ugly reality that occurred at the time. Part ghost story, part historical fiction, it’s worth a read.

I completely forgot to take notes while reading this book. I became totally obsessed with finishing it. I'm not sure I can adequately express the emotional, traumatic gift that this book is to readers. It's one that'll stay with you long after.

This book broke my heart about a dozen times.

In The Reformatory, Tananarive Due brings us a terrifying ghost story, some very dark history, and a book that is scarily relevant today.

Robbie, Gloria and the boys at the reformatory were so innocent and what happens in the book just strips that innocence from them time and again. But even as some parts are extremely hard to read, Due’s writing style is engaging, the plot exciting, and our reformatory so chilling that I simply could not look away. If I hadn’t had to work, this would have been a one sitting read!

Those of you who are here for the ghost story will not be disappointed – this book will have you on edge. And if you’re here for the history? It’s horrifying and very well done.

A perfect read!

• ARC via Publisher

Thank you to net valley and Gallery/Saga for the advanced digital review copy.

The Reformatory draws you in from the start.. Tananarive Due drew inspiration from her own family ,"by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of".

Set in 1950 in Gracetown, Florida The Reformatory centers around 12-year-old Robbie Stephens Jr. Robbie is sentenced to a reformatory called the Gracetown School for Boys, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in towns son while defending his sister Gloria.

Robbie has a special ability to see ghosts. After his mother passed away his ability was a comfort to him but while at the reformatory it has turned into a window to see the truth of what truly happens there. Boys forced to work to remediate their crimes have gone missing without a trace but the ghosts have shown Robbie what happened to them.

While Robbie is learning to survive, Glory is rallying everyone she knows and trying every way she can to get Robbie out of the reformatory before it's too late.

The Reformatory is based on the true story of the Dozier School for Boys. The book centers on systematic racism with a supernatural twist. The writing is nothing short of superb. Tananarive Due did an amazing job telling the story of one of the most horrific atrocities to a modern audience. The Reformatory is one book that I will not be forgetting anytime soon.

The Reformatory is a very difficult read to get through. Even a lifelong horror reader like myself, I struggled through the graphic depictions of violence against children. Of course, the author's purpose is to make the reader uncomfortable since it's based on a horrifying true story. But be warned going into this one, if this is something triggering to you then I highly advise not picking this one up.

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due will be available on October 31. Many thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the gifted copy!

“Sometimes the dead could help you fly.”

After the death of his mother and being left behind by his father, 12 year old Robert Stephens is wrongly sentenced to time at a boys reformatory school in Florida to teach him a lesson. Set in the Jim Crow era, Robert experiences the true horrors of the living and the dead while serving his sentence. Everyone that grew up in town knows about some of the terrible things being done but but it’s never been enough to get the school shut down. Through pain, suffering and horrors no person should ever have to endure, Robert risks everything along with his sister, Gloria, to find freedom, escape the South and bring Justice to the poor souls that lost their lives while serving time at the school.

This book hits close to home bc I grew up in Blountstown, FL which is 30 mins from Marianna where some of these true horrors happened to young boys at the Dozier School for Boys. It was heartbreaking to the point where I had to set this book down and step away for a while due to scenes in “the Funhouse”. The spook factor is definitely present in the story, in fact I jumped a few times while reading when my house creaked! 😂 Overall, it’s a 5/5!!

Tananarive Due pulls no punches in this harrowing ghost story where, wisely, nothing is as legitimately scary and dangerous as white people are to black people in Jim Crow Florida. When 12-year-old Robert Johnson, Jr (who goes by Robbie, as his union-organizing father's name is practically a dirty word in town since he was run out of town on false allegations of rape) kicks a white boy who is harassing Robbie's big sister, Gloria, he is subjected to swift injustice, sentenced to 6 months at, and immediately delivered to The Reformatory, a boarding school-cum-prison for boys. It turns out black boys on particular are unlikely to serve only as little as their sentenced time, and few boys of either race make it through without being tortured by Superintendent Haddock, a character whose sadistic cruelty rivals, or even surpasses that of Hannibal Lector or Patrick Bateman. In chapters that alternate between Robbie's and Gloria's perspectives (plus a few other POVs now and then), the two siblings fight for their lives and plan to free Robbie, whose ability to see ghosts catches Haddock's attention and forces Robbie into an untenable position where he must help Haddock capture and destroy the haints at The Reformatory who are both Haddock's victims and his tormentors, but whom Robbie knows are harmless to the innocent -- and one is even his friend (or is he?) Robbie is terrified of being sent back to the Funhouse, Haddock's nightly whipping building, or to any of the other infamous Reformatory torture sites (including a rape shed and an isolation pit), much less Boot Hill, the field where boys who've been killed for trying to escape -- or more minor infractions -- are buried unceremoniously. But if he obeys Haddock, he risks extinguishing the ghost he longs daily to see: his and Gloria's mother. And the last thing he wants is to hurt anyone else, like his friend Redbone, whose safety is at stake should Robbie fail his ghost-catching mission.

Meanwhile, Gloria, who has some precognitive visions (Gracetown is known to be a touch supernatural), knows she's not safe in the family home, which indeed is burned down by townspeople who hate her father. She dodges racial violence and explicit aggressions while reaching out for legal aid from an NAACP lawyer and her white employer, Miss Anne, who owes a debt to Robert Sr and has her own secrets. Gloria learns that while there are people willing to try to help, their abilities and willingness have limits, and it's ultimately up to her, Robbie, and Miz Lottie, their 83 year-old neighbor, to get the children to their Papa in Chicago.

The book's tension tightens vise-like as the clock runs down on Robbie. Though the horror is visceral and miserable to read, Due makes us bear witness to the realities of the 1950s South and, through the use of spirits, shows how racial trauma perpetuates, haunting America and demanding both recognition and reparations.

I received The Reformatory as an ARC ebook on NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Normally I don't care for really long books but I knew I had to read this one because of how popular this author is in the horror community. Boy am I glad I read it! This is a riveting, uncomfortable, and covers topics that NEED to be spoken about. Absolutely brilliant!

Unjustly sent to a boys' reform "school," a Black boy is brutalized by both the Whites in charge and the White boys doing time. As his sister and her allies rush to get him out--by means legal or not--he's tapped as a ghost hunter because of his ability to see haints, of which the school has many. The setting feels very real, and the haints are predictably grotesque. But the pacing often feels off--I don't think people have long conversations while standing still when they know they're being hunted by dogs and men with guns, for example. Other aspects of the storytelling feel rushed, and while time is an important factor in the story, some events seem to fall too quickly to make much sense. The characters are not particularly interesting or deep.

I am familiar with Due's previous works, and this is probably the best one so far. Very important and truly horrifying at times. Recommended.

The Reformatory once again shows how fantastic an author Tananarive Due. This a southern gothic, slow burn of a novel, but so worth the read. Based on a true place (Dozier Boys School), in which Due had a family member (uncle?), makes the horror even more real. Yes, the novel deals with ghost... but the true horror is what happened at Dozier. This is a book that worms down into your soul.

If you are looking for a companion read, I also suggest the nonfiction book about Dozier Boys School "We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys" -- in which the author mentions Due.

Fantastic. Utterly compelling and very readable. I highly recommend this book as it was easily readable and well written. A new author for me to read and recommend. Thanks to the publisher for my ARC. This is one not to be missed.

I'm not quite sure why I didn't like this one more (though I'm glad it seems to be getting some love on Goodreads). The prose is solid, and the story is unique -- there are a couple predictable twists, each offset by some unpredictable ones. The last 1/5 of the book is exciting and it becomes a page-turner (which is maybe part of my struggle, since I expected more of the book to have that feeling). The Jim Crow history is as frightening than the ghost part of the story. It should work, so maybe it was my own reading context.

I do think that the book is longer than necessary and there are couple subplots and minor characters that don't pay off (I can make some guesses at the reasons for their inclusion, but by the end they feel less unresolved and more inessential).

It is a unique book and it would be great if it takes off, even if it was like-it-not-love-it for me.

In The Reformatory, Tananarive Due mixes supernatural horror with the dual real-life horrors of prison and the Jim Crow south. The experiences of Robbie in the Reformatory and of Gloria outside of it are truly horrifying, as are the ghosts that haunt the prison and the town--not so much because of their supernatural nature, but because of the way they remind the characters (and the reader) that the past isn't always the past.

I really liked the concept of this book and how it is based off a true story. It was definitely an interesting read.

In 1950 Gracetown Florida twelve-year-old Robert Stephens could sense his mama’s spirit, but his older sister dismissed this as nonsense. They were alone after their mama died and their father was run out of town for trying to help Black men strike. Robert knew he was supposed to be careful around the Whites who were angry about his father, but his temper took over when one disrespected his sister. Since he kicked a White boy, Robert was sentenced to the Gracetown School for Boys for 6 months. There he and other boys would endure horrific beatings and slavery work in the fields and could face being locked up for days without food, water or light, as well as other abuses from the Superintendent and his men.

Robert found it hard to be in the presence of the ghosts of boys who’d been murdered there, but one wouldn’t leave him alone. Robert could help him get revenge on the Superintendent but, if he got caught, he would end up in the cemetery with all the other boys who had never made it home. Robert just wanted to make it home to his sister, but to do so he would have to appease the ghost.

Based on true horrors at Florida’s Dozier School for Boys, Due dedicates the book to Robert Stephens, her great-uncle who died there in 1937 when he was fifteen years old. “The Reformatory” is gripping and kept me on the edge of my seat. I looked up information on this school after reading Colson Whitehead’s “The Nickel Boys” in 2020. I still find it reprehensible that it was allowed to stay open for 111 years, despite numerous deaths, complaints and violations over the years.

Though the Florida legislature apologized in 2017 for atrocities committed at the school, it has not made any financial reparations to the hundreds of boys (now men) who still feel the pain of their incarcerations. It’s time for Florida to do the right thing for those who grew into manhood with the chains of Dozier still hanging around their necks.

Highly recommended for ages 18 and older.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely riveting. I was uncomfortable, anxious and filled with dread but I couldn't put it down. Some truly terrifying moments here, and the absolute worst part was knowing the true horrors (institutional racism, systemic abuse) were pulled right from history. Tananarive Due wove in some real life historical figures from the era effortlessly, and I ended up doing some research on those people (and then later this type of school) which chilled me to the bone.

If you have the stomach for it, this is a very worthwhile read.