ŷ������

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due is our Group Read #1.

Please use spoiler tags when necessary and page numbers/percentage read so we don't spoil it for others.

Happy New Year! May it be a great year for reading.

You are all in for a treat..great novel.

looking forward to it!

Great!

I'm finishing this book now and look forward to sharing my thoughts.

This will be my first time joining for a group read here, but I fully intend to join for The Reformatory, I've really been wanting to read this one.

This book will have you in the feels. Highly recommended and highly loved.

Guaranteed one of the best read you'll ever experience 🙌❤️

i read this (I've read both the January books already) but this was absolutely amazing. Good choice. maybe I'll reread it soon...

I will be listening on Audible. Excited to start this soon.

I’ve only heard amazing things about The Reformatory, I cannot wait to read it! Also my first read with the group and am looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks too!

Astonishingly, as for Elizabeth, I believe this would be my first book with the group. This looks like a great opportunity: I've been curious about Tananarive Due forever.

My schedule for January is already looking busy but I'll try to join. I might be late as a result.

This book was incredible! I hope everyone enjoys it.

So excited to be a part of the group! I finished a bit early 😅

Great book! This was one of my Five-Star Rated reads of 2024.

Picked this book up an looking forward to digging in.

just got it! so excited to read it :0

Can't wait to be able to read these two. 😁

Just got my copy so I can read with you guys <3

It cost me $14.00 dollars. I truly hope it is a good one.


Zain

I have read The Good House by the same author years ago and loved it. Looking forward to this!

This is such an amazing book! I can’t wait to see what everyone’s thoughts are!!! Enjoy!

Ooh I’ll have to join in with this group read at some point this month :) I believe I already have a copy on my Kindle!

Percentage 17%, page 100

Thoughts so far: The style is easy to read, yet clear and evocative. Started off heartwrenching, and (view spoiler)[there were lots of hints of what was to come with the mentions of haints and only children being able to see them. I was waiting for the scary bits and just got to the scene where they are stuck in the fridge. It's just chilling - no pun intended (hide spoiler)]

yay kindle version is on sale for 2$ I thought I was going miss the group read after B&N cancelled my order.

Still waiting for my copy of the book to be delivered. They must have sent it by Pony Express.

HA! I knew as soon as I complained about the slow delivery the book would arrive.
I'll start reading this afternoon.

This is so hard to read god it’s so emotional

@26% and oh it's getting scary/creepy, (view spoiler)[especially from the perspective of a twelve year old. Robert has just been taken to the Funhouse :( and I'm wondering if maybe his Mama's ghost is going to step in and save him somehow if things get too tough. (hide spoiler)]

Hi all, I started this yesterday. I'm only about 10% through but, there's an unsettling and creeping dread. I'm so worried about Robert!

Read it already, my favorite book of 2024! Enjoy. I wish I could read it again for the first time. :D

Yeah, this gave me the creeps @p. 281/49%: (view spoiler)["You don’t know angry ’til you’ve met an angry baby, Robert Stephens. There’s something they don’t teach you in church.�� Warden Haddock winked, a flutter of his right eye. “Now, I know what you’re thinking . . . she’s got the right to haunt me of all people. I’ll give her that one.�� (hide spoiler)]. Horrifying and sickening :(

Waiting on a copy from my library. Looking forward to participating if I can get a hold of it in time!

Around page 80 so far and is uncomfortable but compelling.

22% in and I am hooked. It took me probably the first chapter to get used to the time period and situation in which this is set and once I did, I am all in! It's a great read so far.

The writing is amazing.
Hard to say I'm enjoying the story because how can anyone enjoy reading about such horrible treatment of our fellow humans? But the story is compelling.
I've just gotten to a point where Robert is seeing the haints. It would be hard not to run for the hills after that.

Just finished Chapter 22...OMG! I sort of felt it but, wasn't sure...

I do like the way the book switched between inside and outside of the reformatory. It helps to keep the situation inside grounded in the awful reality of the place and time.

I'm a little late to the party on this one, as I just started it, but so far I really like it

WendyB wrote: "The writing is amazing.
Hard to say I'm enjoying the story because how can anyone enjoy reading about such horrible treatment of our fellow humans? But the story is compelling.
I've just gotten t..."

63%/p. 361

Exactly the way I feel, Wendy!

For me a lot of the 'horror' comes as much from Robert's situation and the more real-life horrors faced in the book, as the genre fiction aspects. I know that sounds like I'm dragging the supernatural parts of the book, but I'm not - they (view spoiler)[add wonderfully to the atmosphere during the first half, and they play a part later in the story (hide spoiler)]. I'm 63% through, just at the point where (view spoiler)[Robert is in church trying to spot the haint (hide spoiler)].

Great read, the ghosts are the least scary part of this book

I had to wait to start thanks to everand throttling, but I'm finally in progress. I started the Reformatory last night via the audio edition narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt (who also delivered an excellent narration of Lavalle's Lone Women), and I'm really enjoying the narration so far, would recommend the audiobook for those who like the option of listening.

I finished the first five chapters, which finishes off part one of the book.
(view spoiler)[I haven't reached anything that would be considered horror yet, although certainly much of what occurs is horrifying. I find Robert and Gloria to be incredibly compelling protagonists. I enjoy how well the perspective characters being a 12yo and a 16yo is handled, with them sometimes not fully understanding everything that's happening but still being aware of a lot. The historical setting is building up really well. Really enjoying it so far, and I'm very eager to see where the story takes me. (hide spoiler)]

Elizabeth wrote: "I had to wait to start thanks to everand throttling, but I'm finally in progress. I started the Reformatory last night via the audio edition narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt (who also delivered an ..."
(off topic) Lone Women was a great book imho. Lavelle is such a clever writer

This sounds like a super intense read! I have my copy and going to start it later this week.

I finished this last night. I stayed up reading as there was no way I could put it down during that finale! I'm giving it 5 stars: This is a fantastic novel full of suspense and gut-wrenching intensity. It is a supernatural story immersed in the grim reality of the period. The horror of this novel is not found where you might expect.

I'm going to try to finish this weekend. Really need to know what happens to everyone.
Great story and well written. I'll have to read more books by Due.

I just finished this and I've got to say it's been a long time since a book villain truly unsettled me but here we are. This was great, I recommended it to my father as well.

I totally agree David, Lone Women was excellent! Lavalle is a fantastic writer, but also I'm a sucker for historical horror. Which explains why I'm here reading the Reformatory haha

I'm part way through chapter fourteen at this point, just past the quarter mark. I'm absolutely loving it, Due is a brilliant writer. It's an emotionally hard read for sure though.

(view spoiler)[This is such an unforgivingly brutal read. It's so hard to read the scene in which Robbie and the other boys are in the funhouse, those two chapters were agonising. Even Gloria's chapters leave little room to breathe. It's so compelling though. I completely agree with Robbie that it's hard to find the ghosts creepy at all when such horrible things are happening in his present, and that definitely feels like part of the point. I'm very curious about the supernatural elements and exploring that more, but reading more of Robbie and Gloria's stories is definitely the more pressing thing on my mind with their stories being so compelling as historical fiction without delving into horror elements (even if the history is horrifying). (hide spoiler)]

I'm on p. 444/77% through and (view spoiler)[Redbone has just died. :( I wonder if Robert will ever get out. I was thinking the Reformatory would somehow be destroyed by the end of the book, maybe g by t the haints themselves, (hide spoiler)], but the further I read the less plausible that seems.

This book is truly phenomenal so far. I feel like "enjoy" is definitely the wrong word, but I'm engrossed for sure.

I've finished up to the end of chapter 19. My spoilery thoughts may still be spoilers to people who have read this far, because I'm about to speculate lol.

(view spoiler)[Blue is for sure a haint. I knew something was going on early on after meeting him, but I didn't start to speculate that he was a haint until he apologised to Robbie with the cornbread, that whole scene was just so strange. I'm super confident that he's a haint after having read the scene where Blue is in the fields, and then Boone asks Robbie to tell him about any haints he comes across. Both aspects of that have me very sure lol. (hide spoiler)]

Hey just heads up the e-book is on sale now on Amazon for a great price, not sure for how long -