Torn to Pieces

A Thousand Questions

Generation Misfits

How to Be Brave

Wave

Wishing Upon the Same Stars

Motherland: The Other Side of My Heart

We Are All Different for a Reason

Family secrets, a swoon-worthy romance, and a slow-burn mystery collide in We Deserve Monuments, a YA debut from Jas Hammonds that explores how racial violence can ripple down through generations.

What’s more important: Knowing the truth or keeping the peace?

Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she's uprooted from her life in DC and forced 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 unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she’s turned away, leaving her desperate to learn the secrets that split her family in two.

While tempers flare in her avoidant family, Avery finds friendship in unexpected places: in Simone Cole, her captivating next-door neighbor, and Jade Oliver, daughter of the town’s most prominent family—whose mother’s murder remains unsolved.

As the three girls grow closer—Avery and Simone’s friendship blossoming into romance—the sharp-edged opinions of their small southern town begin to hint at something insidious underneath. The racist history of Bardell, Georgia is rooted in Avery’s family in ways she can’t even imagine. 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 in Bardell—or if some things are better left buried.

Discover Your Child's Next Read

Torn to Pieces

Margot McDonnell, 2008

A Thousand Questions

Saadia Faruqi, 2020

Generation Misfits

Akemi Dawn Bowman, 2021

How to Be Brave

Daisy May Johnson, 2021

Wave

Kris Goto, Diana Farid, 2022

Wishing Upon the Same Stars

Jacquetta Nammar Feldman, 2022

Motherland: The Other Side of My Heart

Vineeta Vijayaraghaven, 2001

We Are All Different for a Reason

Lee Beaman, Taylor Leszcynski-Walters, 2020