3.5 stars rounded up to 4.*

I downloaded this title during the COVID days when I really thought I could read 30 books a week. It fell to the bottom of my NetGalley queue and I forgot about it.

Then I saw the title on several must-read books for Black History Month and I remembered that I had it!

My Monticello is a compilation of three short stories. All of them are vaguely dystopian, featuring captivating Black American protagonists. All provide big food for thought.

I enjoyed the stories, even if they left me sad.

*with thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for this honest review.

A fascinating collection of short stories. The real star is the titular story about people taking refuge at Monticello. I look forward to more of the author's work.

My Monticello is a phenomenal read. Made up of five short stories and a novella, you get a peek into what it is like to be black in America and more specifically in Virginia. My Monticello, the novella that ends the book, had rich world building, dimensional characters, and left me wanting more when it ended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you Jocelyn Nicole Johnson and Netgalley for the ARC. This is not what I expected. I was hoping for a historical novel versus the individual pieces. Missing was the Levys of Monticello story - which I learned after the fact in a documentary. It is worth the read, but know what you are getting when you go into it.

My Monticello is an ingenious and vividly written novella from debut author Jocelyn Nicole Johnson. She brings all our fears and anxieties to the reading table and asks that we hold them and look at them from all angles. Such as in her story "Buying A House Ahead of the Apocalypse," where a mother makes a list of things she will need when she considers what will be lost during the end of the world. This book is a poignant look at the role race, privilege and history play in the lives of Black people in the South. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson's collection holds a mirror the reader and asks them to find themselves within each story.

Very interesting story. I recently visited Monticello and the book took me right back there. The story examines some heavy topics in a entertaining, page-turning manner.

I DNF'd this book. I just could not get into it as much as I wanted to. I have heard such great things, but it just was not my cup of tea.

This book is a concert of multiple stories and identities that come together in one place.

Thank you NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for giving me the opportunity to read this.

A powerful collection of stories (and novella) about race in America. Johnson's writing is powerful, and the titular novella in particular feels both too real and something I desperately do not want to be real. It builds upon the echoes of recent events in a way that makes it feel totally possible.

I can see this being perfect for some patrons, but perhaps not for most of mine. I did buy it for the library.

This was an impressive collection! I enjoyed all of the stories, which felt unique and well-written, but “My Monticello” was several steps above the rest. That was a terrific novella and I wanted more. I look forward to the author’s next book!

This book contains 5 short stories and a novella. I loved the short stories, but would have loved to see the novella as a full novel. The sense of place was so strong that I could imagine. I can't wait to read more from her.

A gorgeous and stunning debut. Difficult in the best ways. The title story was hands down my favorite. Brava!

The short stories were poignant and resonate so much with our current times. I grew angry, sad, and thoughtful. Really loved it.

I felt this book deeply. In my view, that is something I rarely expect to say after reading a series of short stories or even novellas. But Ms. Johnson's voice as a writer is distinctive and haunting. it isn't just that her prose is both excellent and unique. It's more that her themes resonate in ways that are hard to describe yet memorable, like deja vu. For example, I did not love every story here but I loved that I got them all, the way I get it when someone describes the ebb and flow of labor. Having had a child, I will always know that feeling.

Being Black does not mean I'm part of a monolith but I will always know the traumas and community that Ms. Johnson describes so well and so effortlessly in her novel. It will always be vivid for me. All of her stories are successful by that measure. She does it so well, that I even felt it in my least favorite story where she so accurately and poignantly describes Black schoolchildren, I can believe for sure that she was a teacher in her other life. A life that may be forever changed by this outstanding debut.

Therefore, to say this is a book that will resonant only for a certain type of person does it a disservice because it's just too interesting. Told with cool suspense in first person, her most popular short 'Control Negro' is a diabolical story that serves the book well as a starting point. Her most beautiful (IMHO) and unusually written story,'Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalyse' is not as unusual as it first appears because it is obviously more poem than prose. It also reminds us that Ms. Johnson is occasionally playing with writing about how things might be or turn out, as much as she is rendering what is.

My favorite short 'The King of Xandria' which deftly tells a story of the isolation and seemingly endless frustrations of the immigrant in ways that both confound and confront our own bias and lack of understanding for people we only choose to understand superficially. And then there is the tour de force that is 'My Monticello', a transporting novella with uncomfortable and realistic notes of the dystopian possibilities of what could happen in a racially polarized America. That story is so good I barely put it down as I read and Netflix agrees so we'll see it picked apart at length soon enough.

But it's the entire book that will stay with me I think, for the way it made me feel as I read: seen and healing.

Haunting title novella that may technically be "speculative" but reads as an accurate extrapolation of the USA in the near future. The remaining short stories should not be forgotten, especially the powerful Control Negro.

I don't recall where I first heard of this collection but I'm sure I was as much drawn to it by it's title as it's content. I have revered Thomas Jefferson for most of my life, even knowing that he was wrong to have been a slave owner. It's only in the past decade or so that I began to consider him and his legacy more closely. What might a descendant of Sally Hemings think about Jefferson's Monticello? I knew I wanted to read that story.

This collection is stunning and thought provoking and so terribly sad. Sad because it makes plain how difficult life has been being black in America but even more so because it paints such a terrifyingly realistic of a future America where it is even more difficult. Each of the short stories in the collection is written in an entirely unique style and every one of them has its strengths. The first, "Control Negro," is, as Roxane Gay says, "one hell of a story." In it a professor asks the question, "Given the right conditions, could America extend her promise of Life and Liberty to me too, to someone like me?" To find out, he needs a "control Negro" and so impregnates a young woman then supports his son from a distance, making sure that he has every advantage a young white man might. It's brilliant.

But as I read the collection, as I so often do when I read books by and about black Americans, I wondered if I'm the best person to judge such a collection. I can tell you that I'm wow'd by this collection, by Johnson's writing, and look forward to reading more by her. But does it speak to those whom she is writing about? To answer that, I turned to Gay, who has this to say about the collection:

"It is a rare breed of writer who can tell any kind of story and do so with exquisite deftness. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is one such writer. Her debut collection, My Monticello, is comprised of six stories of astonishing range and each one explores what it means to live in a world that is at once home and not. She dissects the unbearable burdens of such displacement. The crowning glory of this collection is the title story, a novella about a world that has fallen apart and a small band of people who take refuge in Monticello, among the old ghosts of the former plantation, how they become family, and how they try to make a stand for their lives, for the world the way it once was. This collection is absolutely unforgettable and Johnson's prose soars to remarkable heights." - author Roxane Gay

Colin Grant, of The Guardian, has this to say:

Throughout the novel, there are echoes of the historical resistance of African Americans outnumbered and outgunned by foes, yet fighting back. As Da’Naisha’s band of walking wounded brothers and sisters prepare for one last stand, you fear the worst. My Monticello is a bleak story but reading it elicits the same kind of sensation that comes from listening to a poignant blues song: there is pleasure in its creation without denying the pain of the subject.

If you're a fan of short stories and you're prepared to be made uncomfortable, I can't recommend this collection highly enough.

This was a stellar collection. right out the gate "control negro" left me shocked and gripped me. Each story was so special giving insight to different people seeking home in unknown places. The immigrant widower, the woman creating a safe haven in anticipation of the apocalypse. My Monticello was the most interesting taking place in the future about the descendent of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings.

What an incredible debut. You honestly have to just read it to understand it, there is no good way to explain it.

Usually there are bits of collections that don't hit as hard as the others, but that is just not the case here. It is nonstop amazing from start to finish.

Also, kudos the the cover designer- it is amazing!

I will read anything Johnson puts out next.

Thanks so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy!

This book contains several short stories and a novella about racism. I'm probably going to be in the minority, I wasn't a fan of this particular book, but you can judge for yourself. I probably should have looked into it more before requesting it. It just wasn't for me, but that does not make it a bad book. I might try and see if my local library has an audiobook version i could try.

I received a copy of the book via netgalley and am voluntarily leaving an honest review