Welcome to Litsy!

Absolutely heartbreaking story from beginning to end. I feel like everyone needs to read historical fiction set in the Jim Crow south. This book was written so well and I was completely immersed. It was a little long which I felt several times throughout the book, but I don‘t think I would have been as invested if it wasn‘t. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

May‘s finished #bookspinbingo card
6 bingos
2 DNFs (& 2 more that I probably should have)

Tagged book was my favorite read of the month!

@TheAromaofBooks

This was heavier on the historical drama vs horror than I realized it would be but I was engrossed by all aspects of this story & desperate to find out what would happen next.

Grateful I got to hear Tananarive Due speak about her personal journey writing “The Reformatory” and her thoughts on Jim Crow horror, as well as the Salem Horror Festival‘s theme of “the horror within” as it applies to her work. Loved her terrifying & thought-provoking novel! #horror #racism #ghosts

Well that wraps up March. It was an awesome reading month from the beginning. What did you read this month? Any new faves?

The Reformatory
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Empire of Silence
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

All Systems Red
⭐️⭐️⭐️

I also squeezed in a few audiobooks. You can check out my full wrap up and reviews here: https://wildwoodreads.com/2025/03/31/march-2025-wrap-up/

Picked this #audiobook at random on Libby, and all I can say is "what a great choice!" This one deserves a solid 4.5-5 stars.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Starting The Reformatory today. See what all the praise is about.😁

I should have read The Reformatory sooner. This is one of those books that sticks with you long after you finish it. It‘s an important message wrapped up in an addictive story. If you haven‘t read it you need to immediately. I don‘t care what your preferred genre is this is an important story that everyone needs to experience at least once.

https://wildwoodreads.com/2025/03/10/the-reformatory-review/

Definitely my favorite book of February!

This is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Drop what you're doing and read this book.

Trust me.

Absolutely fantastic book. I had all the feels while reading it. Just…heartache and hope and terror and light and darkness and sorrow.

Happy Birthday, @wanderinglynn! Lynn is celebrating her special day by hosting a book giveaway. 🎉🎂🎁💗 #49bdaygiveaway

Got my #aardvarkbookclub box. The hardcover The Reformatory book is gorgeous. It came with the original cover, but I'm going to shelve it without it. Too pretty not to.

Monthly books! #Aardvarkbookclub #Bookofthemonth #botm

For Aardvark, full box again (🫨🫨), incl their book of the year (tagged), which, yes, I woke up at 530a to make sure I could secure (8aET is 6a here), plus these 2 I just… can‘t… pass… up. @AardvarkBookClub

For BOTM, a little lackluster, but I picked this interesting sounding thriller + getting the next issue of their short story subscription. Must… actually start that series soon… 🤔

New month for #aardvark and once again I filled my box! (My excuse that I‘m having surgery next week and may not be able to get to the library.) I couldn‘t miss out on The Reformatory again even though I‘m a bit worried about the length. The other two are mystery/thriller tropes that work well for me. What did everyone else pick?

My top five reads in 2024. I am really disappointed that I haven‘t seen The Reformatory on any “best of” lists. It is one of the best literary horror books I‘ve ever read. It was definitely my favorite book of the year.

Aardvark Book Club's 2024 Member Choice Winner was just announced. This special edition is so pretty! I'm definitely adding this to my January box. Hopefully I can snag one of the signed ones.🤞🏻

#aardvarkbookclub

Getting to the end, what will be my favorite of the year?! No idea, though this month my favorite was The Reformatory by Tananarive Due. I also went through my 5 stars for the year and added two standouts for my bonus - Where He Can‘t Find You by Darcy Coates & Ruin Me By Midnight by Ginny B. Moore. #readingbracket2024

This is an excellent and horrifying historical thriller based on Southern reformatories. Not an easy read, but so well written. I highly recommend. 5⭐️

A light day at work means I get to finish this! I can‘t put it down at this point and was almost up WAY too late reading it 😂

This is eye-opening historical horror. Ghosts play a big part in the book, but they are not nearly as terrifying as the living during the Jim Crow era. The book made me wonder how much has really changed. We still have the school to prison pipeline.

This is a fairly long book, and it is worth every page. I loved the main character, 12-year-old Robbie Stephens, and I was on the edge of my seat worried about him.

This was heavy - well written but I found it dragged on way too long. And the haint element was hard to get into, as anything other worldly tends to be for me. (43)
⭐️: 3/5

I am surprised about how much that I liked this book because this is a dark subject for this long of a novel; however, the writing is engaging and I felt the author's love for the subject and ended up racing through it. Also there's a spooky element that both illustrates the violence of the novel and adds a lighter, unreal element that makes the whole thing a bit more palatable.

This was engrossing but too difficult for me to read while grieving. I will pick it up again. I wish there was another button for this exact situation.

Haunting in more ways than one! Spooky ghosts, child abuse & racism plague a Florida reform school in the 1950s. The onslaught of cruelty young Robbie & his sister Gloria encounter can be difficult to listen to, but plot twists and a compelling, ghostly ending make it worth it. #ghoststories #horror #StokerAwardnominee

Currently reading this historical fiction ghost story about a 1950‘s reform school for boys in Jim Crow Florida.

Hard to put this one down!

#ghosts #abuse #racism #historicalfiction #ghoststory

This horror novel is set in a haunted reformatory in Florida in the 1950s. The ghosts in the reformatory are nowhere near as scary as the people running the place. The racism and hatred in this book left me breathless. The author includes references to historical people and cases, which had me looking up the true stories. The characters are well-rounded and the writing is propulsive. I am looking forward to reading more of this author‘s work.

3.5⭐
𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐬⇩
-Robert‘s POV was by far the more interesting one.
-The haints were a stand-out.
-It sheds light on the deplorable conditions these children were subjected to.
𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬⇩
-Gloria‘s POV, while necessary to the story, could‘ve been shaved down quite a bit.
-Multiple POVs with only one narrator, an additional male narrator would‘ve been best.
-Too long…or at least too long for me, although, plenty of people will find this a pro.

Only good thing about getting pneumonia is audiobooks. This very scary read, which is up for the Shirley Jackson award for best novel is a truly scary look at haunting of the supernatural and societal kind in the Jim Crow American South.

That was intense!

This is a book that is going to stay with me long after today.

I am speechless with how much I want to talk about this but also aware I don't have all the words I need to use to express how amazing this book really is. At moments, I was left breathless, hair raised and goosebumps all over from the tension and fear radiating from the pages and in some moments just held in suspense at what I was hearing as Joniece Abbott-Pratt narrated this book

My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/juz1nuZOlAg

Enjoy!

#indiebookstoreday #bookhaul - just supporting the local indie with @JenReadsAlot

"Black history is Black horror."

I honestly have nothing else to say.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I said what I said 😋

Two 5‘s, two 4‘s, two 3‘s. Titanic one just released 4/2

This book is exceptional. I am blown away, wrecked, and in awe. I both didn‘t want to put it down and had to take breaks from the brutality. Due honors every boy abused, tortured, and/or murdered in schools of this type. This is my first read from her. It won‘t be my last.

A little over 50% done and I can‘t put it down.
@rachelsbrittain

This book was truly amazing. I could feel the raw emotion dripping off the pages. You really did care for these characters. This book made me laugh, cry, shout, and get angry. I do have to say, I think it could have been shortened. I think Gloria's perspective could be cut or at least most parts. At times, there were information dumps that made the pace get very slow. I think that would have taken this amazing book to a spectacular book. 4.5/5

True fact: #litsypenpals make birthdays extra special! Thank you so much @Beck9lol for all the literary birthday love! I can‘t wait to dive into all of these gems and the houseplant book will give me good tips for future plant babies and help to care for the ones I have. 🌱🪴📚 The puzzle looks like so much fun! I‘m blessed to have an extraordinary, thoughtful and kind book friend! Thanks, Becky, for making my birthday a special one! 🥰📚🎂

Think Nickel Boys + ghosts. It's actually really clever what the author does with this. I recommend this for sure. This was my November Aardvark pick.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

#Aardvark @AardvarkBookClub

This is such a good book. This is horror but the horror doesn‘t come from the supernatural or made up monsters. Within the first 25 pages the racism of 1950s Florida comes and grabs you by the throat and doesn‘t let go. Half this book is 12 yo Robbie at the school for boys, the other is his sister Gloria doing everything she can to get him out. They both go through their own hell. Due is a great writer, her writing put me right there with 👇🏼

Of course I had to go down a rabbit hole because I didn‘t think she would throw something random out like that. I had no idea these women existed. Check them out: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/seventy-five-years-ago-militarys-only-all...

Off to book club tonight…I‘m pretty sure I‘m the only one who finished the book. 😬 Some months are like that I suppose. 🤷‍♀️

Inspired by the death of her great Uncle at the Dozier School for Boys back in the 1930s, Tananarive Due delivers a gripping and harrowing tale of survival in the face of extreme adversity and cruelty.

Set in the 1950‘s, this is a propulsive page turner that combines engrossing drama and the supernatural while shedding light on the system of dehumanization that, as evidenced by our current prison system, sadly exists to this very day.

Set in rural Florida in 1950, this unflinching depiction of brutality at a reform school follows 12-year-old Robbie Stephens, sentenced for kicking an older white boy, and his 17-year-old sister Gloria, who is determined to secure his freedom. Ghosts haunt the grounds, but the true monsters are among the living. If I'd known how intense this would be, I might not have read it--but once I'd started, I had to know how it would end. Haunting.

Whoa, this book made so sad and angry! It was such a great read (although it was incredibly hard to stomach). It was so well written, and I absolute loved Gloria and Robert. This story was loosely based off Florida‘s Dozier School for Boys- and horrific stories of death, abuse, and other maltreatments that eventually came out from adolescents that were victims of the reform school.

I get why this book was on all the “best of” lists last year. It‘s a very well-written, compelling, & heartbreaking story about a boy sentenced to six months in the notorious Gracetown School for Boys after kicking the son of the largest landowner in town. Inspired by her own family‘s history Due crafts a powerful critique of the Jim Crow South. I enjoyed the book but found it as easy to put down as it was to pick it up. Still, a good read.

Finished my first book of 2024 🤩

Time to start my irl book club selection. This one appeared on a lot of “best of” lists last year and I‘m anticipating a great read. 🤞