We Deserve Monuments - Jas Hammonds

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"When her family moves to Bardell, Georgia, on the cusp of her senior year, Avery Anderson is uprooted from DC and thrust 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 reveals a decades-old conflict they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she's turned away, leaving her desperate to unearth the secrets that divide her family. 

While tempers flare at home, Avert finds friendship in unexpected places: with Simone Cole, her captivating next-door neighbor, and Jade Oliver, a member of the town's most prominent family, whose mother's murder remains unsolved.

As the three girls grow closer - and Avery and Simone's friendship blossoms into romance - the sharp-edged opinions of their small Southern town begin to hint at something insidious underneath. Avery soon discovers her family's roots are deeply entwined with Bardell's racist past. 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 - or if some things are left buried."

WOW, this book is incredible, in so many ways. I don't even know where to begin, there are so many layers woven together to create this amazing story. I suppose we start with the title and the cover.

I don't know how anyone looks at this cover and doesn't get chills. I got it in my Melanin in YA book subscription box and added it to the "for real, read these right now" book pile that I keep separate from my regular TBR shelves. Which you would think would mean I read it immediately, but "read these right now" really means "read this in the next six months or so, hopefully." I mean, show me a person who sticks to their TBR plans and...I don't know, maybe they're telling the truth and maybe they're not, but either way I don't trust them. Anyway, fortunately my sister read it and was like "hey, you have to read this" so I was like "okay, let's read it right now, FOR REAL!" And I'm so glad I did.

Avery's family has to move from Washington DC to a tiny town in Georgia partway through her senior year of high school after they learn her grandma has terminal cancer. She's disappointed to be uprooted and unsure about living in this small, clearly racist town after spending so long in DC pushing toward her college and career goals and being surrounded by people who are much more accepting than most of the people she'll encounter in Bardell. What's more, she doesn't know her grandma, Mama Letty, at all, and she's not sure how to react to the surly older woman who doesn't seem to like her and clearly does not want them there.

Then Avery starts getting to know her grandma and learns that there's a whole lot more going on with Mama Letty than she could ever have realized. And she becomes friends with Simone and Jade and realizes the history of the town, and her growing relationship with her new friends, are much more complicated and tangled than it would have been possible to predict. As it all twines together, this multifaceted, beautiful story coming together in ways that had me tearing up almost every chapter. 

The present day story is interspersed with short flashback chapters, pulling back the veil on Mama Letty's history with the town and reminding the reader that the past is not as distant as many of us try to convince ourselves. The heartbreaking moments in the story are buoyed up by shining moments of hope and joy. Like I said before, there are so many pieces of this story, and they are woven together so beautifully. I'll read anything by Jas Hammonds, their storytelling is masterful.