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Gracetown, Florida
June 1950
Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.
The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.
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Visualizza tuttoI had to put it down several times and pick it back up again. This book is dark and it's LONG. And you definitely don't feel good about reading it once you're done. I do not believe this book is a "horror" book. Are the book's contents horrific and vile, absolutely. But it isn’t the main element. It's a historical fiction first and foremost. Yes, there's a slight paranormal element to it with the "haints" but to be honest it reads more like a thriller. I also found the pacing to be off. The book was probably longer than it needed to be, with Gloria's chapters feeling unnecessary at times. Her chapters felt repetitive and they dragged the story out way longer than it needed to be.