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.

Tananarive Due has achieved new heights with The Reformatory-- a gripping and brutally haunting meditation on the legacy of racism in the Jim Crow South, and the cruelties enacted at the Dozier School for Boys throughout its operation. I'm sure there'll be a ton of Nickel Boys comps when this releases, but The Reformatory stands on its own as a deeply researched passion project with incredibly well-realized leads.

The story follows two young siblings, Gloria and Robert Stephens, after Robert is swiftly and unfairly sentenced to spend six months in a Florida reformatory school for boys. The novel reimagines and draws partly upon the lives & experiences of the author's family members, and alongside ghosts, grief, and unimaginable violence, you can still feel incredible care, catharsis, and warmth in every page. The narrative may be contained to several weeks in the 50s, but Due really manages to capture how the threads of slavery, segregation, and racial trauma carry the weight of centuries of dehumanizing violence and thread through to the present day. While Due doesn't shy away from the brutalities her characters face, there is incredible love, familial strength, and resilience in this novel. Though there is unspeakable pain and loss, there is also incredible hope; there is kinship, there is justice and release. I cried so many times while reading this-- for the boys who lived these atrocities. For the boys who didn't survive them, and the families who continue to mourn them and search for answers.

The Reformatory is a nuanced and deeply empathetic portrait of the suffering Dozier's boys (and black families in general) endured throughout the twentieth century. An emotionally rewarding page-turner and an excellent addition to the growing canon of black horror.

Having only previously read a quirky YA zombie short story called ‘The Garage’ by Tananarive Due with a family hiding out from the creatures in their garage, I was happy to explore her work further. The Reformatory did not disappoint, packing a serious punch blending a supernatural story with that of racial and social injustice in fifties Florida. Note that this book uses authentic and very realistic language from the period, all of which would be considered highly offensive these days. But the fact that it does not hold back helps creative a very rich and immersive reading experience.

The Reformatory is set in the midst of a very dark period of American history where ‘Jim Crow’ laws enforced segregation and many Black people lived in fear of organisations such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) hate group, lynchings were a genuine fear, with little or no support from law enforcements. Main character Robert Stephens Jr. becomes a victim of these laws in the early stages of the book, when he is sent to a segregated reform school, for kicking a white teenager, where he experiences the terrors and horrors of racism and injustice. It is also a place he sees ghosts, a key part of the story which is saved for the second half of this chunky 576-page novel.

This did not necessarily feel like such a long novel but the split narrative, which took long sections away from the prison, certainly slowed the action and one could not help wonder if the book would have been stronger if it concentrated entirely on the Gracetown School for Boys reformatory. The second narrative concerned Robbie’s older sister Gloria, effectively his carer since the death of their mother, and her fight to get him released from the reformatory. This was complicated by the fact that their absent father, who was a known agitator, had left under a cloud for the city, leaving his children to fend for themselves. Gloria felt especially bad about her brother’s incarceration as he was trying to defend her after unwanted advances from a white teenager.

This part of the story with Gloria was clearly making very worthy points about the struggles of Black people with the law, who were at the mercy of judges and had no apparent rights to appeal, but took the focus away from what was an excellent ghost story. In the early part of the story the horrors of the reformatory are enough to turn anybody’s blood cold, with the supernatural story of ‘haints’ developing very closely. Interestingly, I could not recall ever reading about this particular type of ghost which according to different dictionaries are connected to several southern American states (including Florida) and are often the descendants of African slaves.

Think of your worst ever cinematic or literary prison and then some and you will begin to realise how awful this reformatory truly is, almost in documentary style, especially for a young boy who had never previously been in trouble. The warden of the prison Fenton Haddock was a truly monstrous creation, a sadistic and cruel psychopath who took pleasure from punishing and torturing boys for minor discretions and then praising The Lord afterwards. But there is hope, Robbie makes friends with Redbone and Blue and realises that he must quickly learn the rules to survive. But after an agonising trip to ‘The Funhouse’ where punishments are doled out, which is little more than a torture chamber, Robbie finds himself in the radar of the warden as Haddock realises the boy can see ghosts (haints).

The Reformatory was a powerful and moving work of historical fiction which beautifully blended a story of ghosts, survival, love, friendship and the struggles of the Black man in segregation era America. The story was inspired by a relative of the author who served time in the infamous Dozier School for Boys.

Absolutely incredible! Eerie genre-bending novel perfect for fans of Stephen Graham Jones and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.