We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds is a debut novel about a young girl and her mother trying to connect with their dying estranged grandmother. Avery Anderson is a seventeen year old girl who was looking forward to spending her senior year with her friends and touring colleges. Instead, her parents take her out of school and move down to the deep South (Georgia) to spend time with her grandmother. Avery tries to connect with her grandmother, Mama Letty, but it’s hard when Avery’s mother and Mama Letty are always down each other’s throats. Avery tries to dig deeper and connect with the two women to figure out what drove the two of them apart.
When tempers flare and tantrums are thrown by her avoidant family, Avery is desperate to escape and find her own place to belong. Avery connects with the girl next door, Simone Cole, and also Jade Oliver, the daughter of a prominent family. The trio connect over their own grief and sadness while quickly forming a bond with each other that Avery never had with anyone else. Simone is dealing with the unexpected death of her brother and her sister leaving her family behind. Simone feels trapped because her mother has no one else but her. Jade’s mother was brutally murdered and the case has remained unsolved.
As Simone and Avery start to spend more time with each other clandestinely, they feel that their friendship is blossoming into something more. However, not everyone in the small Georgia town is open and friendly as Avery wants to believe. The small town of Bardell, Georgia is steep and tainted with a dark history of racism that still ripples through the community.
The novel was a tearjerker read on how people with broken pieces are trying to find a way to amend the damage done by time and hatred. The book was filled with well-developed and flawed characters who were trying their best to navigate life with the cards they were dealt with. However, there were times I felt that Avery was being unreasonable. When she found out the reason behind her family’s disagreement, she took out her anger on her friend without even trying to apologize for lashing out at them. I understand that she was feeling hurt and betrayed but her friend didn’t do anything to her personally and her friend constantly went out of her way to help Avery.
Mama Letty was a vibrant character but I found it hard to like her at times. As she is nearing the end of her life, she still refuses to acknowledge some of the pain and trauma she has caused others until the very last moment. She, like Avery, were both filled with hate about things that were done to their family and instead of moving forward, they lashed out and hurt others which continues the vicious cycle of pain. The novel does have a redemption part but, will the characters be able to heal from the trauma or will it stick to their soul?
I felt that the story dragged on for a while without any plot progression. The story hinted that someone Avery knew might have murdered Jade’s mother but it was hinted at and left to the readers to infer who the killer was. The murderer was never really ousted and it didn’t really have an impact on any of the characters or the story. I felt like this arc was just thrown in there to try and tie up loose ends, while it could have been developed more. This young adult novel does have LGBT characters and if you love reading about dysfunctional families with past trauma, you might enjoy this slow burn novel.
