Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - The Weight of Blood

A retelling of Stephen King's Carrie modernized and with a new twist.

I wanted this to be a five star, but I think it missed a few key points for me.

I really loved the idea of a new twist on Carrie, bringing in an issue that is in our forefront right now and especially in 2020 when it seems like this book was written. I really appreciated the telling of a story about how mean high school girls can be to each other from the perspective of a female writer, but I think the story fell short here. There clearly was intersection between her being a woman and her being bi-racial that given the length of the book could have been used much better.

The main reason I say this is in Carrie the tension in Carrie's home is created by her mother being afraid for her purity and uses her religion heavily to keep that. She believes that any form of sexuality, including puberty, is sinful and is extremely abusive from that angle. Likely because of how she was treated by Carrie's father. In The Weight of Blood, Maddy lives with her father who treats her as his personal housewife because he clearly is one of those men who "long for a simpler time." He only watches old movies, listens to old music and is against new technology. This is never explained really, except that he does it to protect Maddy. He believes if he can teach her to dress and act like *white* homemakers from the 50s, he can protect her from what people will think of her being mixed. My confusion is that Maddy's femininity doesn't play that big of a role in her character development, except that it gets Kenny's attention. We get the root of all of Maddy's father's abuse and it is

Spoiler

because she has the same powers his mom has

so we are blaming women at the base of it.

Kenny is convinced by his girlfriend Wendy, who very much has a bit of white savior in her as well as "I don't see color" kind of attitude. She is also very hard to like, even though she gets the best redemption arc, because she is the type of girl who just does everything to have the dream future with the dream guy. Her life revolves around Kenny and Kenny's revolves around football. Kenny shows the most character growth in a way, because he starts trying to push back against his life being determined for him but that is only because he falls for Maddy. And he falls for her because she is "not like other girls." Which is not just me being snarky, it is literally written in a book published in 2022. I have no words, I thought we were past this or at least trying to be. There is also quite a bit that reminds me of those 2000s nerd to hottie movie transformations, because he starts noticing how pretty her eyes are when she starts to not wear glasses and then we get talks about her small frame and thin figure when she starts wearing skirts and "men's undershirts." Honestly, I am kind of sad that Jackson didn't bust out a blue chambray workshirt on us. I think the interactions between Kenny and Maddy and the insta-loviness was just a little too tropey for me.

I also really did not like the explanation we got at the end from Maddy's father on her true roots. It really felt like we were supposed to excuse his abuse of Maddy because he had his own trauma. Abusers often abuse, I don't think we need to be reminded of this and be given a seen where we are supposed to feel pitty for him.

Maddy did a lot of what she did for Kenny, which is from my memory a change from the original story. Carrie did it for herself. She may have had feelings for Tommy and she lashed out from being tricked, but its not the same as what happened here, I mean

Spoiler

Maddy only snapped out of her grief enough to survive because she was told Kenny was alive

. It just makes it lose some of it's strong woman vibe.

I will say, Jackson can write. I appreciated her flow and descriptions the pace was nice and characters were developed, even if I didn't like the direction they were developed in. I really hated Jules, right down to her court testimony. I very loudly made a grumbled exasperated sigh noise of disgust when reading that part actually. I was actually upset with what happened to Kenny after the incident in the barn, and it wasn't all just in reaction to the type of event it was. I genuinely cared about him. I do wish we would have got more of his mother and sister, I liked them. His dad is a dick though.

Content Warnings

toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is a "Carrie" retelling, and I've never read that book nor have I seen the movie. This was so brilliant though, I don't think I'm ever going to even need to read the original. This book didn't even read like YA for me, I really think that any fan of horror could pick this up and appreciate it. The main characters are complicated and well drawn, the character development (for better and for worse) is off the charts. I also really loved the podcast element that ran all through the book. It reminded me of the best parts of "Sadie" which is a book I loved in 2020. If you do pick this up, keep a tissue box nearby, mind your triggers, and enjoy.

Also: Tiffany D. Jackson I LOVE you.

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imstephtacular's review

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.25

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instalovewithbooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

** Thank you to Netgallery and Harper Collins for a free copy for review. All my opinions are my own.**
And Tiffany Jackson does it again. I tried to listen to Weight of Blood on audio - but soon realized how uncomfortable I was, and that it either needed to be a DNF or a format change. I tried the format change, and reading it thru ebook was much better than thru audio.

The audio narrator does something to you, and I know this is a mix of thriller and horror and I literally could not handle it thru audio. It made me feel on edge a lot of the time. I feel like I could take my time more with the ebook, and could read a page or two and step back.

Now, Jackson is one of the few authors who writes thrillers and horrors that I can read. It isn't the usual genre for me.

And I think it's absolutely brilliant. I never know how to rate her books, because they're brilliant but they're also distressing. The endings are always something that there is some closure but there is still a open ending and you're hoping for the best but in the world's that Jackson creates, they're never the best type of world or story you would want to be in.

Maddy's story ruined me. I still feel a bit numb by it but I feel like it might be a fave of mine, besides Mondays Not Coming.

Read it. I am gunna jump back into Grown once more and see if I can finish it this time.

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abookandaspotoftea's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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a_libra_library's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Thank you to Katherine Tegen Books and Harper Collins and Epic Reads for this ARC

This was my first ever Tiffany Jackson book that wasn't a collection of other authors and I loved it. Her writing style, her character felt real and whole through the entire story. I love that she took the story of Carrie and added her voice to it. The plot, the themes, the format- it was so amazing.

A five star read that should be on High school teachers radars!

This story follows the structure of Carrie (which added to the horror, if you know you know) with a twist. Tiffany sets our story in a small town in Gregoria in 2014. Maddy Washington is our main character and she's been keeping a few secrets her entire life. One being she's biracial. After a video of Maddy getting bullied goes viral on twitter the media takes a closer look at the town of Springville, its high school and its history of racism since its one of the few high schools that still hosts segregated Proms.
In an effort to make peace and prove that Springville isn't as bad as the media makes them out to be The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date to Prom.

This story is told in a sort of a then/now format. There is a podcast that speculates about the event of the prom, Maddy's life, her secrets and the town history, but then you go back in time to read what actually happens.

Like I said if you know the story of Carrie you may have an idea of what happens next. I truly believe that knowing the story of Carrie and the background of racism in high school will have you on the edge of your seat while reading. I cried, laughed, awhed and threw my arc copy around because I was watching the story unfold.

P.S, I will be preordering so I can get the epilogue to know what happened after prom. (and the sash)

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