A review by ooohgoshtara
We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This novel is layered and has a lot of depth. Beware it's an emotional story. A slow burn that follows main character Avery. Avery is a queer, biracial teen. There are secrets, drama, and a decades old mystery. Avery's family uproots their life moving them from D.C. to a small southern town to stay with their dying grandmother. The relationship between Letty, Avery's grandmother and her mother Zora has been strained for years. Because of their turbulent relationship Avery and her grandmother have never gotten the chance to get to know each other. Their strained relationship made me sad. Avery does what they can to get to know Letty even though neither Letty nor her mother make this easy. Avery is discovering who they are navigating friendships, love, family, and multi-generational trauma. The characters are so well developed. I enjoyed navigating this story with them from the family dynamics to the friendships. This YA novel touches on racism, anti-blackness, police violence, homophobia, grief, terminal illness, and death. I found Avery's family struggles to be very relatable. Deep rooted resentment from past hurts, secrets, and repeating the trauma cycle generation to generation.
"All night I thought how mom uprooted our entire lives to move down here. And now all she did was swat away my questions in a half baked attempt to pretend like everything was okay. Mom had always raised me to mature and inquisitive. But when it came to our own family all of that was out the window and replaced with her don't worry about it life is short the universe is big and our problems are not bullshit."
I thought this novel was well done from beginning to end and was floored by the many revelations at the end. Loved the title and how it ties into the overall story.
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