The Reformatory

All right.

My next one for my fall is actually another one that I picked up on a whim on that same book shopping day, and it's The Reformatory by Tananarive Due.

Oh, my goodness.

So this one caught my eye first and foremost because the cover's just, like, really cool, atmospheric.

I read one just this week, and this is, uh, uh- ...

Tananarive Due, uh, The Reformatory and Maise Wood.

So The Reformatory came out in 2023.

It's set in 1950 Florida.

We have a 12-year-old boy who is sent to a reform school, the reformato- reformatory, because he's defending his older sister against a bully, and so he has to spend six months in this re- f- reform school.

These are not really, like, super scary.

They are very unsettling, and there was, when I was reading Maise Wood, one moment where I was like, "Okay, I gotta stop reading that tonight, and I'll come back to you tomorrow.

I can't do it anymore." So again, this is The Reformatory and Maise Wood by Tananarive Due.

Let's look at number 10.

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, 4.43 score over 101,000 ratings.

The setting here is extremely specific, 1950s Florida.

A very tense setting.

Pool.She is a master

Which is vital here because the subject matter she tackles in The Reformatory is incredibly heavy.

It is.

It requires a remarkably steady, skilled hand to weave real-world atrocity into speculative fiction without, you know, cheapening the reality of what happened.

Really?

Yes.

The ghosts in The Reformatory are not there to distract from the human evil.

They are there to serve as undeniable historical evidence demanding to be seen.

She's-

She wrote The Reformatory.

Yeah, she's-

Do you know her at all? She's the, she's a little old lady.

It builds this thick, suffocating atmosphere that absolutely gets under your fingernails.

Following that thread of historical and systemic weight, we arrive at a work of monumental scale and gravity, Tananarive Due's The Reformatory, narrated by Janiece Abbott Pratt.

This one is a massive undertaking.

It is.

Even as he's subjected to unimaginable brutality and the supernatural environment descends into a literal hell, she preserves the innocent cadence of a child trying to make sense of a senseless world.

That juxtaposition is just heartbreaking.

Hearing the gentle, confused rhythm of a child's internal monologue clashing against the harsh, unforgiving realities of the reformatory is what keeps the listener tethered to the story.

It's brilliant narration.

And today I am incredibly excited to be joined once again by Brianna N. Cox.

So we had Brianna on back when we talked about Sinners and Tananarive Dew's The Reformatory.

Thank you so much for having me.

Get on threads and follow Brianna at PedroPato2 for not only updates on her own writing, but on so many incredible things.

Thank you for having me on again.

I'm excited to talk about horror as a creator and not just as someone who likes things a lot.

Yeah, so you came on and you helped us talk through Sinners and the Reformatory.

And at that point, we asked you about the relationship between joy and horror.