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The Reformatory

Tananarive Due

Start date: January 1, 2025

Finish date: January 31, 2025

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What Members Thought

Jan 15, 2024 Shruti morethanmylupus rated it really liked it

This is such a heavy book. It's based around a real juvenile reformatory school (the Dozier School for Boys) in Florida. This true history is highlighted in the traumas detailed in the book, which makes this book even more painful to read. Due underscores this history with magical realism elements. Sometimes, I find these to detract from the story but here they serve to further highlight the atrocities these poor children were subjected to over the years. It's a real-world example of the conclus ...more

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Feb 27, 2024 Trisha rated it really liked it

Shelves: aardvark-read, goodreadschoice2023

A very good but very heavy story. I like that it mixed historical pieces with paranormal horror. It was a nice mix, to break up the real horror (the people running the school) against haints and things that go bump in the night. It was a nice mix and gave a distraction, at times, to the horrors that are based on historical fact. But it's a tough read, one that broke my heart again and again. I loved it but I also found it rough to get through.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for prov ...more

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Jul 15, 2024 Lori rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The Reformatory is a powerful fictional account based on the Dozier School for Boys, with which the author had an unfortunate family connection. Tananarive Due first learned about her real Robert Stephens from a prosecutor in the Florida State Attorney’s office. Her relative was purported to have been stabbed at the school in 1937 and when they exhumed his body found he had an ear infection so severe there was still evidence of it. She wrote this novel to honor his memory and the memories of all The Reformatory is a powerful fictional account based on the Dozier School for Boys, with which the author had an unfortunate family connection. Tananarive Due first learned about her real Robert Stephens from a prosecutor in the Florida State Attorney’s office. Her relative was purported to have been stabbed at the school in 1937 and when they exhumed his body found he had an ear infection so severe there was still evidence of it. She wrote this novel to honor his memory and the memories of all others who were buried there or those who survived their experiences in that school and others like it.

Due’s novel is set in Gracetown, a fictional small town in Florida in the 1950’s Jim Crow era. Robbie, a young black boy, kicks a white boy who was making advances to Robbie’s sister. He is sent to The Reformatory, a school that operates more like a prison and treats the boys like slaves. It is run by a warden, Haddock, who thinks nothing of inflicting violence on the young boys. The book alternates between Robbie’s experiences at the school and his sister, Gloria’s, mission to advocate for Robbie and help him get out of the school by any means possible. Their mother passed away and their father was forced to flee to Chicago after being falsely accused of raping a white woman. It all falls on Gloria to help raise her younger brother. As the author said in her note,

“I created Haddock as an amalgam of a system of violence in children’s incarceration-but the truth is that no one person can explain away the reported events at the Dozier School, or the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, or the Indigenous ‘schools’ in Canada where so many children were buried. No one person can be blamed for our nation’s current nightmare of mass incarceration….the actual villain is a system of dehumanization.”

This book drew me in from the beginning. You can’t help but root for both Robbie and Gloria. There is a mystical side involving ghosts, which is not usually a type of book I would read, but it blends beautifully with and moves the plot along. Due depicts the horrors without being too graphic, although if you are at all human, you will cringe or cry at the experiences these young men endured.

The book is long at over 500 pages, but it reads quickly and you rapidly become absorbed in the fate of both Robbie, Gloria, and the other characters who help them, in particular their godmother. This book is dark, scary and emotional, particularly with what is going on in the country today. “Colored folks fighting for what’s theirs is like a virus to white folks-and they kill a virus so it don’t spread. That killing is the work of man, not the devil.” I would highly recommend this book and think it should be required reading. This is my first novel by Tananarive Due, but certainly not my last. ...more

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Mar 12, 2024 Erica marked it as dnf · review of another edition

This is very good but also very upsetting and I'm not strong enough to handle it. ...more

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Feb 16, 2024 Tanya Patrice rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobooks, horror

Just wow! This book is heartbreaking in so many ways - but so so good! Living in Jim Crow South was not easy and the author pulled no punches in describing how tough it was. And on kids too - who are the main characters. And then there's the "reformatory school for boys." Just a horror show! The author also did a great job of weaving the magical realism elements into the story. I will forever remember this book. ...more

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Jul 19, 2024 Kaleen rated it it was ok

Shelves: dnf, horror, 2-star, aardvark-book-club, 2024, july-2024

Oh I tried so hard with this one! For months. Sadly it’s a DNF for me. There is nothing wrong with this story, but it has been such a slog. I appreciate the setting and the storytelling is wonderful, however it just will not hold my attention. That being said, I would still recommend this to others.

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