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Content snapshot
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Violence
Very heavy
Extreme violence including racial violence, torture, and death; based on real atrocities
Language
Some
Period language including racial slurs in historical context
Sexual Content
Barely any
Brief adult content
Substance Use
None
No substance use
Emotional Intensity
Very heavy
Extreme psychological darkness; the horror of racism intersects with supernatural horror, and the ghosts are literal as well as metaphorical
What this book is about
Twelve-year-old Robert Stephens Jr. is sent to the Gracetown School for Boys in 1950 Florida after accidentally brushing a white girl's arm. The school is brutal and racist — and haunted by the ghosts of boys who died there. Tananarive Due's horror novel is a devastating intersection of historical racism and supernatural terror, based on a real facility. Extremely dark, extremely powerful.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Extreme violence including torture and child deaths
Racial violence and historical atrocities
Horror content
Extreme psychological darkness
Very difficult reading experience
Reader Verification
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