The Reformatory - Outside of a Dog

audio cd, 1 pages

Published June 27, 2023 by Simon & Schuster Audio and Blackstone Publishing.

ISBN:: 9781797160153

(1 review)

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 …

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.

5 editions

Kat reviewed The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

Inside, it's too tense to read

4 stars

My main worry when I started this book was that it wouldn't do much but cover the well-trodden ground of US race politics. That worry was founded, but at the same time this is such a we'll-executed book it doesn't really matter. It was evident early on what was going to happen, save a few minor plot twists. So it was a bit predictable, but also meant that the book was very tense all the way through - I was terrified of reading the climax. At the time I was going through a difficult period in real life so I avoided reading more than a little bit at a time. The scares in this book aren't supernatural. They're real and they're pretty sadistic too. I know I'm not selling this book but it was good - the characters, even, especially the minor ones, were well-written and the world fully realised.