We Deserve Monuments

This past summer, I stumbled into the library with a friend to hide away on a gloomy day. With an upcoming trip of long plane rides and layovers, I needed some material to help me survive the week and a half of beautiful family time. I walked away with four novels, including We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds. I cracked open that book that night, expecting to savor the story slowly; instead, I finished it in about fifty hours, just over two days.

       A 2022 young adult romance brimming with mystery, slow-burn queer love, and family secrets, We Deserve Monuments tells the story of seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson. Just before the start of senior year, her parents explain they must move from their steady life in Washington, D.C., to Bardell, Georgia, after finding out her grandmother’s health is on a rapid decline. The thing is, Avery hasn’t seen her Mama Letty in years, not after the drama that finally formed an unfixable chasm between Avery’s mother and Mama Letty. Now trapped in a town filled with racism and southern town bigotry, Avery finds friendship with two girls: Simone Cole, who lives next door to Mama Letty, and Jade Oliver, the daughter of an unsolved murder case and the most well-known man in town. Over time, Avery views her new friends as genuine rather than an escape from her family life, but when she and Simone begin to become something further than friends, everything takes a turn. Secrets of her family and the town loom, and Avery must decide if finding the truth is worth everything she’s gained in Bardell. Are some answers better left hidden, or is it time for the world she knows to be turned upside down? 

Within those fifty hours, this book easily became my favorite. Hammonds’ voice as a writer makes every word and every plot point hit the reader directly in the senses. They easily pull at your heartstrings with each stretch of dialogue and make you feel as though you truly are in the story right alongside all of them. Along with this, Hammonds creates their characters realistically complex; none are truly good through and through, although no matter how positive or jagged one may be, there is a moment where almost all of them let their underlying core shine through. They each get a moral moment, and everyone is written with passion and reality. 

While discussing the insane number of plot twists in this novel would spoil the story, I can say that my jaw was practically hanging open the entire time I was reading. Subtle hints are scattered in each chapter, but whenever something was revealed, a string of gasps and “oh my God” mumblings broke the intense silence of wherever I was. Nothing felt too unbelievable, just the perfect amount of crazy. The clues easily keep any reader itching for more, and watching events unfold until the very last page was an amazing experience as a reader!

This book has certainly earned a place dear to my heart, but it may not be for everyone. We Deserve Monuments deals heavily with racism, homophobia, terminal illness, death, and abusive family dynamics. However, there are more content warnings I have not listed, so I advise you to glance them over on the author’s website before cracking open the cover. When looking at the novel overall, the way these topics are handled and discussed is immensely relevant, especially to our generation of teenagers, no matter your story. 

I have always leaned toward lighthearted tropes of love and humor, but something about this novel simply took hold of me. I connected deeply to the characters and their experiences; I did not know I held that many tears in my eyes! In all, We Deserve Monuments is one novel I will recommend to absolutely anyone and everyone for the rest of time. If you read it and find you enjoy it, Hammonds also recently released another book entitled Thirsty, which is next on my To-Be-Read list. Happy reading!