The reformatory has a reputation for cruelty; many young men imprisoned there have died in incidents including fires, beatings, and neglect.

Writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Melanie Marotta stated that the novel "centers on family dynamics and systemic racism and ends up fitting firmly within the neo-slave narrative genre."

In some cases, authors in this genre include ghosts "to impress on the characters and readers alike that the United States’ past may not be erased; it continues to haunt and recall the enormity of systemic racism."

Due also invokes Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man through the character of David R. Loehmann, a Jewish social worker.

Lyle McCormack, the teenager whom Robert kicked to protect Gloria, is a member of a powerful local white family which has become wealthy due to slavery.

The character of Miz Lottie concludes that "'Maybe it’s a curse on us—a town named for Grace that don’t act like no godly place.

[1] The novel is dedicated to the real-life Robert Stephens, Due's great-uncle who died at the Dozier School for Boys in 1937 at the age of fifteen.

In 2013, Due learned of her great-uncle's existence when she received a call from the Florida state attorney general's office informing her that she likely had a relative buried at the school.

The review also called the novel "at once an ingenious ghost story, a white-knuckle adventure, and an illuminating if infuriating look back at a shameful period in American jurisprudence that, somehow, doesn’t seem so far away.

"[1] Becky Spratford of Library Journal also gave the novel a starred reviewed, calling it "a masterpiece of fiction whose fear actively surrounds its readers, while the novel speaks to all situations where injustice occurs and compels its audience to act.

Brown states that when "people write about the history and legacy of slavery in the South, they often talk about Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and the Carolinas.

My ancestors were enslaved in Florida, and the state holds a lot of importance to this day in my family, so Due’s Gracetown stories have always appealed to me on a personal level."

"[6] Also writing for Locus, Paula Guran states that "nothing is more horrific than real life," speaking of the book's atrocities which are based on historical events.

"[7] In a review for NPR, Gabino Iglesias writes that Due "delivers here a historical fiction narrative that manages to destroy readers with the ugliness of unabashed racism while also making every hero in the book Black and celebrating Black excellence..." Iglesias also praised the combination of the historical and the fantastical in the book's mixture of genres.