We DeserveMonuments by Jas Hammonds

Family secrets, a swoon-worthy romance, and a slow-burn mystery collide in We Deserve Monuments, a YA debut from Jas Hammonds that explores how racial violence can ripple down through generations.

What’s more important: Knowing the truth or keeping the peace?

Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she's uprooted from her life in DC and forced into the hostile home of her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty makes for a frosty arrival and unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she’s turned away, leaving her desperate to learn the secrets that split her family in two.

While tempers flare in her avoidant family, Avery finds friendship in unexpected places: in Simone Cole, her captivating next-door neighbor, and Jade Oliver, daughter of the town’s most prominent family—whose mother’s murder remains unsolved.

As the three girls grow closer—Avery and Simone’s friendship blossoming into romance—the sharp-edged opinions of their small southern town begin to hint at something insidious underneath. The racist history of Bardell, Georgia is rooted in Avery’s family in ways she can’t even imagine. With Mama Letty's health dwindling every day, Avery must decide if digging for the truth is worth toppling the delicate relationships she's built in Bardell—or if some things are better left buried.

Genre(s): Young Adult; LGBT; Contemporary Fiction

Literary Accolades: Goodreads Nominee for Favorite Young Adult Fiction (2023)

My Thoughts

This is a debut novel and it is a good one. There is a lot going on and the book dips into multiple genres. Mostly, though, it's about multigenerational family trauma and abuse, especially as it relates to the long history of racism in the southern United States. Avery is a sympathetic character and I connected with her. She was going through a lot. She starts off fairly naive, believing everyone should move on and get over what happened, but she grows into understanding through the book.

The romance subplot here is well fleshed out. I like hw Avery formed a quick, tight-knit friendship with both Simone and Jade, and the book explored how their dynamic as a friend group changed as Avery and Simone's relationship became romantic. there is an authenticity to the messiness that results which makes them feel believable as teenage characters who are figuring out themselves and their relationships with others.

The murder-mystery aspect of the story has to do with two murders; one that shook the community but remains unsolved, the other, unimportant to most others, but one that left scars, wounds that have never fully healed. In both cases, both involve Mama Letty and the richest (whitest) family in town, the Oliver’s. Avery is dropped in the middle, being Letty’s granddaughter, and being friends with Jade Oliver.

The true enemy is the false belief that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. Unsurprising, given the title of the book, Jas leans into the idea that southern landmarks have seen their fair share, life unfolding in front of them in different ways, despicable things, occasional acts of courage, moments of love and grace.

The three generations of women, Mama Letty, Zora, and Avery provide the connection here and their relationship with one another is the driver of so much that happens in the book.

We Deserve Monuments is a good book. It’s a good story with historical relevance. They say history isn’t about the past, but about the present, and it is true in America where the sins of the past, will echo for generations to come. I appreciated the writing as Jas skips the histrionics, This allowed for methodical pacing wihic allows you soak it all in, making this a wonderful reading experience. I gave We Deserve Monuments a 5 star rating.