Reviews with content warning for Racism - My Monticello

This was a beautifully written, intense collection. Johnson expertly captures emotion and pain in each of the stories, though “My Monticello” is on a different level.

I could feel Johnson’s care and love of Charlottesville (and Northern Virginia), and, having lived in Charlottesville for the past eight years, it made all the stories feel even realer.

Highly recommend!

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imlfox's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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jesshindes's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Massive recommendation from me for My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson: it's an absolute banger. It's set in a future America, but not all that future: the electricity's stopped working, food is hard to get hold of, and crews of white nationalists are cruising the streets of Charlottesville brandishing automatic weapons. College student Da'Naisha Love, her grandmother MaViolet, and her white boyfriend Knox take flight, along with a bunch of neighbours from their run-down block, and end up hiding out in the place where Da'Naisha spent last summer working: Thomas Jefferson's house, Monticello. Nobody's sure what will happen next. For now, they wait.

My Monticello is a short novel and it drops you straight into the action. Johnson doesn't waste much time setting up the circumstances through which the situation has been reached. She doesn't need to. Instead, she gives you a complex, nuanced set of characters and relationships to get to grips with. You care about Da'Naisha and her neighbours immediately: you fear the instability of their situation, the unknown of what's happening in the city at the bottom of the hill, the certainty that help will not be forthcoming any time soon. There's not a ton of plot to this story - to the extent that I don't want to really say more about the actual events for fear of spoiling - but for me it was a very compelling lens through which to think about contemporary American society. Da'Naisha is descended from Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings so there is obvious significance there in terms of Black history and exploitation but just in general and anyway it's a scary, persuasive variant on post apocalyptic fiction where the apocalypse feels frighteningly imminent. Go and read it!

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mandkips's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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lindsayerin's review

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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amandalorianxo's review

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challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Five mini stories and the sixth one is slightly longer than all five but it’s the sole novella that captured my attention the most. Racism, white idols / supremacy veins and the mere second hand experience of what people of color go through and the possibilities of what could happen (a white militia going after a group of people they dislike so you hide out in Jefferson’s home and you tell the man you love (white) that you are a descendant of Sally Hemings herself? A must.) Definitely check this out - character driven and slow in pace but you absorb & retain a lot emotionally.

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emzireads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

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chwinters's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

most of this rating is b/c i read the last story, my monticello, over a pretty long stretch of time— so it felt like it dragged, when really, it didn’t.

don’t stretch the novella story out over almost a month like i did.

other than that, this book is really good, and you should definitely pick it up. it starts off with a bang, and just keeps going.

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