Book Review: On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah-Yah Scholfield

Title: On Sundays She Picked Flowers

Author: Yah-Yah Scholfield

Series/Standalone: Standalone

Genre: Horror, LGBT, Magical Realism, Adult Fiction

Pages: 231

Publisher: Saga Press

Year Published: 2020

Format: Hardcover (Library Copy)

"In this sinister and surreal Southern Gothic debut, a woman escapes into the uncanny woods of southern Georgia and must contend with ghosts, haints and most dangerous of all, the truth about herself.

When Judith Rice fled her childhood home, she thought she'd severed her abusive mother's hold on her. She didn't have a plan or destination, just a desperate need to escape. Drawn to the forests of southern Georgia, Jude finds shelter in a house as haunted by its violent history as she is by her own. 

Jude embraces the eccentricities of the dilapidated house, soothing its ghosts and haints, honoring its blood-soaked land. And over the next thirteen years, Jude blossoms from her bitter beginnings into a wisewoman, a healer.

But her hard-won peace is threatened when an enigmatic woman shows up on her doorstep. The woman is beautiful but unsettling, captivating but uncanny. Ensnared by her desire for this stranger, Jude is caught off guard by brutal urges suddenly simmering beneath her skin. As the owman stirs up memories of her escape years ago, Jude must confront the calls of violence rooted in her bloodline.

Haunting and thought-provoking, On Sunday She Picked Flowers explores retribution, family trauma, and the power of building oneself back up after breaking down."

My Rating: 2/5

For such a short novel, this story covers so many topics. This book covers the tale of Judith Rice, who is escaping a childhood full of abuse and a home that never felt much like it, even though she's a child of forty-one. Taking to the woods, a house full of spirits and a world where it's hard to say what is real and what is not, we watch as she comes into her own. Who she is, who she's meant to be and who she will become. I enjoyed the start of the novel, and there were portions I found interesting in the middle. But there were portions that I just didn't like. The use of magical realism was fair, but it felt overdone to me. The metaphors and allagories were intense and important, but it felt like too much to be in such a short story.  For me, this was a book that felt just alright. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it, it just was. 

Sidny

Book Review: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

Title: The Reformatory

Author: Tananarive Due

Series/Standalone: Standalone

Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller, Horror, Adult Fiction

Pages: 570

Publisher: S&S/Saga Press

Year Published: 2023

Format: Hardcover (Library Copy)

"Set in Jim Crow Florida, follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he's sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horror of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida

June 1950

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie's journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends, Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it's too late. 

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award-winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel."

My Rating: 3.75/5

This wasn't what I expected when I started reading this book. I thought for some reason that it was a horror with a smattering of Historical Fiction, and by smattering, I mean the setting (similar to This House Will Feed). I didn't realize that the author was basing this work on a family member, or how much this would read as a historical fiction, rather than supernatural horror. Obviously, there are horrific elements (basically the whole book), but not in the same writing I would expect from a horror-specific book. I plan on reading some of her reference texts to gain a better understanding of the subject matter, because I do beielve it is incredibly important to acknowledge our history as humans to help steer us to a better future.

Thanks for reading,

Sidny