The Reformatory

A gripping, page-turning “masterpiece” (Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman) set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

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.

• The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
• Published by: S&S/Saga Press on October 31, 2023
• Genre: Historical fiction, horror, thriller
• Pages: 573
• Dates/Time Read: 5.15.25 – 6.1.25 (18 days 😭); 15 hours 58 minutes
• Format: eBook
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• ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
• ☠☠

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Let me start by saying… yes, it did take me 18 days to finish this book. However, that wasn’t at ALL because the book was bad. Obviously! I gave it 5 ⭐! It also wasn’t because I had a hard time getting into it, or was bored by it. I honestly think it’s because this month, I read some pretty heavy, emotional books. I read a book about slaves being turned into vampires, and these slaves exact revenge on the plantation owner in the most brutal, yet deliciously well-deserved way. I tried to listen to a self-help book that was going to enlighten me on how to have the courage to not be liked, and all I learned was that trauma wasn’t real and if you want to be happy, then…just be happy, damnit! lol I read about a woman who found out that her husband had been drugging her for (at least) 10 years and allowed 70+ men to come take advantage of her and rape her. Then I read a book about a mother who goes on the run from the cartel and races to get her son to safety across the U.S./Mexican border.

Soooo yeah! Going into this book, maybe I wasn’t in a great headspace to begin with. I read the synopsis, so I knew loosely what the book was about. From the description and the genre listing of “horror”, I honestly thought maybe it would be more like a fantasy horror book. Obviously, I knew there would be some dark stuff, but believe me when I say…the darkness does not come from the haints (ghosts). Once I kind of got into the book, and realized just exactly HOW historical fiction this book was, and the horror aspects weren’t from the things that go bump in the night, that’s when it became hard for me to read. Every time I tried to read, I’d get about 20 pages in, and I would have a hard time staying awake. I think that was my brain’s way of telling me, “Hey! We’ve had enough of the dark shit. This isn’t even the good, smutty kind of dark that we typically like!”

Mama used to say “Life isn’t fair” when he cried over not getting his way, but he hadn’t known then that unfairness was so big, covering the world. – pg. 456

Let me tell you, when I finally finished this book, I sat there with chills, and I cried…no, I SOBBED, for about 10 minutes. Then proceeded to have a somewhat heated discussion about racism and the 1950s with my mother, who was born in 1951. Look, I get it! Times were different back then. Even this book shows how people will do the wrong things, for the right reasons sometimes, which is to protect themselves and their family. I just literally can NOT wrap my head around the fact that A) segregation didn’t end until the 1960s (not even 100 years ago!), B) a place like this actually existed and wasn’t shut down until 2011 when they failed an inspection, and C) that human beings would EVER treat other human beings this way, much less children. So yeah, I bawled like a baby when I finished the book, even though the MCs in the book at least do get their happy ending.

To be clear, the book is fiction, but the reformatory school in the book is based on an actual school. The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, FL. The warden in the book is not the actual warden of the Dozier school, but the author based some of the atrocities that he committed in the book on some of the allegations that had been brought against the Dozier school, and others of its kind. The brother in the book, Robbie, is also based loosely on her true-life relative (same name as the character in the book) who died at the Dozier School for Boys in the 1930s. She named her character after him because the real-life Robert Stephens didn’t get to have a happy ending, and she wanted to make sure that at least in her book, he did. The book itself is written beautifully, alternating between the two MCs, a brother and a sister. There were a few little twists here and there, which I liked. Except for the time that Robbie is taken to the Funhouse, the author never graphically describes the rest of the horrible things that occur. They are only hinted at, so…you get the picture. I appreciated that. You don’t need graphic descriptions to make your words powerful, and Due does this amazingly well.

This was another amazing book that is going to haunt me for quite a while and give me something to think about. Due lists her references for the book, and I’d really like to check out some of them someday. But for now…I think my heart needs a little break from such heaviness. I need a good palate cleanser of some romance or smut! haha