
The Weight of Blood | |
By | |
ISBN | 0812995201 |
ISBN-13 | 9780812995206 |
Publication | 04 March 2025 |
Number of Pages | 302 |
Format Type | Hardcover |
Awards | ITW Thriller Award Best First Novel (2015), Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award Young Adults (2016), Silver Falchion Award (2015), Goodreads Choice Award Mystery & Thriller and for Debut Goodreads Author (2014), Missouri Author Award Fiction (2016) |
Book the weight of blood analysis A well written and suspenseful novel and a coming of age story dealing with the mystery of two women one who is murdered and the other who disappeared and both a generation apart The story about the two women is told in alternation chapters in two different time frames and yet this works very well for this book and the author keeps the story flowing with enough suspense to keep the reader interested and turning those pages. Mystery the weight of blood documentary An enjoyable read and I will look forward to other books from this author My thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review Laura McHugh Told in alternating chapters by different voices this is a very dark story set in the Ozarks Lucy grew up never knowing what happened to her mother but when a friend of hers goes messing she sets out to find answers and what she dines brings the truth back into her own family. Book the weight of blood analysis A solid suspenseful and atmospheric debut A novel exploring the ties of blood and exactly how much one will do for family A fast moving novel that reveals secrets kept and crimes hidden How much does one really know about the people to which one is closest ARC from Netgalley Laura McHugh Laura McHughs debut novel.
Mystery the weight of blood documentary
Set in the fictional town of Henbane in the Ozark Mountains this story could be billed as girl hick lit NOOOO Not the Honey Boo Boo version. The weight of blood book like this Lucy Dane s slow minded friend Cheri had gone missing now she has turned up in pieces and Lucy is one of the few in town that cares what happened to her I remember when Cheri s body turned up in the tree the ways I had failed her Like how I d been her best friend but she wasn t mine How I d worried something bad might have happened when she went missing but I didn t do anything about it All the way back when we were little me being less of a friend than she thought I was I gave her my Happy Holidays Barbie not because it was her favorite but because I had ruined its hair. Mystery the weight of blood documentary Lucy later finds Cheri s necklace in a trailer and she starts asking questions around town about what might have happened Lucy s mom Lila also went missing from the town but no one looked hard for her either She was the outcast called a witch because she ensnared men More like suffered from being around the assholes Told from two different viewpoints this story works Moving from past to present usually gets me confused but this one was done right One thing that surprised me in the story was the town being okay with people just disappearing It happened pretty often in the time period of the story being told I did get kinda stabby feeling wanting the jerks to disappearso who I am to judge Uncle Crete I m looking at you You grow up feeling the weight of blood of family There s no forsaking kin But you can t help when kin forsakes you or when strangers come to be family. The weight of blood stephen king PS I found a gif while searching for some to use for this review Even though it doesn t make a dang bit of sense to use it I am going to anyways Because it s my review And he is hot Laura McHugh 3. Pdf the weight of blood summary 5 stars actuallywithout even consciously trying to i have read seven books so far this year and all of them have been by women take that patriarchy but don t start raising me on the shoulders of feminism just yet because what i am about to say will probably cause you to throw me into the gutter and i would rather avoid the bruising this book is a women s version of grit lit. Mystery the weight of blood documentary but hold up by saying this i am in no way saying it is inferior to the novels in the mostly male author dominated genre and i am offended that you would even make that accusation which you haven t but here on the goodreads i have seen so many flare ups over people using terms like women s fiction or chick lit as though these are not actual useful and recognizable distinctions for certain kinds of books that i am trying to make myself perfectly clear before these situations arise. The weight of bloodc critical role this is not women s fiction and it certainly is not chick lit but it does offer a female not feminine perspective to grit lit which is usually characterized by a stark writing style and less insight into a character s psychology than just the very basic facts of the struggles of rural individuals living impoverished lives in harsh landscapes where nature doesn t give a damn and the moral codes are biblical than for lack of a better word at the moment civilized so i m not saying this is girly not at all it is still full of that backwoods justice that i so love It was common knowledge that in the hills with infinite hiding places bodies disappeared They were fed to hogs or buried in the woods or dropped into abandoned wells They were not dismembered and set out on display It just wasn t how things were done It was that lack of adherence to custom that seemed to frighten people the most Why would someone risk getting caught to show us what he d done to Cheri when it would ve been so easy to keep her body hidden The only reasonable explanation was that an outsider was responsible and outsiders bred fear in a way no homegrown criminal could. The weight of blood summary and that s perfect that is one of the reasons i love this kind of writing so much i love the idea of these small close knit social groups with their mistrust of outsiders and their very specific traditions and superstitions that have evolved over time living away from the rest of the world. The weight of blood summary and we have a strong independent female co narrator in lucy who has grown up within this system knows the rules and is handy with a gun who is somewhat other because her mother came from outside but who is enough of the place to understand its rules even as she deviates from them somewhat. The weight of blood summary but the book is ultimately about women and the ways in which their lives have been affected for better or worse by men this is a split narrative mostly between two female characters lila and her daughter lucy lila came up through the foster care system in iowa after her mother and stepfather were killed in an accident a beautiful magnetic kind of girl with a keen instinct for survival who makes people uneasy even as they are drawn to her she endured the unwanted sexual attention of foster brothers and fathers and fought back when it became an attempt at actual abuse she has nowhere else to go and no kin of her own so when she responds to a help wanted ad that takes her to henbane missouri population 700 she knows this has to work out because again she has nowhere else to go it does not work out at all well and she finds herself in a dangerous place without any allies willing to risk their lives for an outsider a scrap of luck falls her way and she finds herself married with a baby girl but still in danger and unable to tell anyone about what happened to her in henbane lest she disrupt the fragile happiness she has managed to claw to herself and then she goes missing when lucy is still a baby presumed by the town and her husband to have killed herself. Mystery the weight of blood documentary her daughter lucy is the other major voice she has grown up in henbane and is now a teenager with a teenager s conflicted feelings of love for her family and her familiar surroundings but an uncomfortable yearning for We d learned in science class that stars looked brighter here than in most places because there were no competing lights Henbane was a dark spot on the globe seen from space. The weight of blood tiffany d jackson audiobook lucy is still haunted by the mystery of what happened to her mother which only intensifies when her friend cheri a slow minded girl she has mostly outgrown but still feels responsible for also goes missing and whose body turns up a year after her disappearance scarred and cut into pieces the story back and forths through lila and lucy s stories and paints an ugly picture of sexual intimidation kidnapping loyalty and an understood code of silence but it also tells the story of a mother s love for her daughter and the risks she is willing to take to protect her there are other voices here birdie the midwife who delivers lucy and becomes a surrogate grandmother to her lila s only friend gabby who knows nothing of lila s predicament or background and is shattered by her disappearance and ransome a woman who worked beside lila upon her arrival who knew everything but never told there are men in the story too lila s husband carl his older brother crete and jamie a man who was bewitched by lila when he was just a little boy but it is the women s stories that are the driving force this is why i am calling it a women s version the voices at the forefront are those of women the violence is the violence towards women the men exist in this novel to affect or be affected by the female characters and the emphasis on family particularly motherhood sacrifice and the inner life of the characters are not often found in male authored books of this genre this is obviously not saying that men won t read this or that they wouldn t appreciate it because obviously that would be a stupid thing to say i have spent a great deal of this review fending off attacks before they happen but that s only because i am not new here on goodreads i know this is a very hot button and i appreciate the perspective it brings a fresh take to a genre i have read bunches of incidentally this review i wrote ages ago crossed my path today and that s probably why i am so fixated on this gender genre issue even though they are very different books there is a lot to appreciate here some of the plot points strain credulity a bit so that s why it didn t get a four or a five star but it is definitely a page turner with an engaging story that is certainly dark and brutal but not without its light at the end of the tunnel. The weight of blood summary In this case like most it isn t even true Now I am admittedly a drinker of the Flynn Kool Aid I think she kind of shits the bed when it comes to her endings but she provides a wild ride for 99% of the story so I have been forgiving McHugh s writing on the other hand What can I even call it Grit lit Hick lit Who the hell knows All I know is it kept my attention like a slap to the face and made me incorporate words like HOOOOOO DOGGIE into my language You grow up feeling the weight of blood of family There s no forsaking kin But you can t help when kin forsakes you or when strangers come to be family A simple synopsis is this was a two fold story of the Dane family and their small community in the Ozarks Part I of the book was told through the voice of Lila in the past and Lucy in the present Usually the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff has a tendency to get on my nerves since it s sooooooo overused but in this case it worked By the end of that section I looked a little something like this Parts II and III were told through alternating voices of nearly every character who was introduced in Part I Not only did the additional narratives add depth to the story having added perspectives was necessary because of reasons. The weight of blood characters The Weight of Blood will be given the generic label of mystery for the simple fact that the present day story loosely revolves around a murdered girl and the flashback story revolves around the disappearance of one Since that s the case I m pretty much going to tell you diddly squat about what happens I will say that I never read a synopsis another review and don t remember what made me put this book on hold at the library so I read 100 pages before even realizing I was reading a mystery This wasn t a book that tried to hide the bad guys In fact it pointed the finger right at them and listed out examples of why they were terrible The end result was a story about the community I was so caught up in that I forgot all about the poor dead girl Not to mention how invested I became in the characters Especially the women These broads were no shrinking violets You ll have to read between the lines a bit on the following quote but let s just say the snake didn t end up having such a good day That so he sneered Didn t see one single thing all day Not one thing that caught your eye Maybe I saw a snake she said laying in the dirt But the next time I looked it was gone I hemmed and hawed all evening about what rating to give this one I can t come up with any legitimate complaints so it s getting all 5 Stars And y all know I don t hand out 5 Stars very often What s that old saying The sun shines on a dog s ass every now and again Laura McHugh The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh is a 2014 by Spiegel Grau publication Sixteen year old Lucy Dane has lived in the shadow of Lila her beautiful mother who disappeared when she was a child Many folks in Henbane believed Lila was a witch and those rumors are still whispered about behind Lucy s back If her mother s disappearance wasn t enough to cope with years later her friend Cheri also disappeared When Cheri s body was found Lucy stumbles across a startling discovery that could be a clue to Cheri s murder This prompts Lucy to start asking questions and do a little investigating on her own Her unwanted snooping uncovers disturbing information about her mother leading Lucy to believe the two cases could be connected This believe it or not is McHugh s debut novel I was impressed by her other books and knew I needed to circle back and read this one too McHugh has an amazing gift of creating a taut atmosphere This story grabbed me right from the start and I had a really hard time putting it down The story develops across two timelines and dual first person narratives gradually piecing together the events of the past and connecting them to the present The suspense is gripping the story is both riveting and heart wrenching Overall McHugh s debut is every bit as riveting as her follow up novels If you like dark compelling thrillers written with a literary tone this is a book and an author you ll want to try 4 stars Laura McHugh It is interesting to live in the area in which a story is set Although Henbane is a fictional town in Missouri Springfield is real and is my own personal stompin grounds Branson is within spittin distance Both are mentioned several times in The Weight of Blood The author captures the tone the feel and the landscape of the Ozarks quite well Clear blue skies the humidity of the summers like living in a sponge and the year round threat of tornadoes are all touched upon in this novel. The weight of blood summary Small town ties can be strong the bond of blood and family even so This is illustrated perfectly in Laura McHugh s debut novel The multiple POVs tell the tale without a single stumble Characterizations are right on from the despicable Joe Bill Sump to Birdie the midwife to the five church ladies with their identical old woman hairstyles and stiff looks of disapproval Sadly a large portion of this story is based on a true happening in Lebanon Missouri from 2010 The subject matter is not pleasant but it makes for an engrossing read I borrowed this from a Goodreads buddy who won it in a giveaway thank you Laura McHugh
The Weight of Blood By Laura McHugh |
0812995201 |
9780812995206 |
English |
302 |
Hardcover |
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The weight of blood summary
You Kindly Stole My Heart Laura McHugh The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh: The weight of blood summary This is a debut novel by Laura McHugh and it is very well written with all the elements of suspense.
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Mystery and southern gothic tone of a seasoned writer. Book the weight of blood analysis I enjoyed the stroy and the secrets that unravelled as the tale unfolded The characters are cleverly written and the plot is well paced and edgy, Mystery the weight of blood documentary I know you though Luce and you always want to do the right thing. The weight of blood summary come to my blog Laura McHugh Find all of my reviews at For fans of Gillian Flynn Seriously Just stop it Right NO ONE likes this It makes me feel all Bitey, Book the weight of blood analysis The Weight of Blood was very readable and I liked it but ultimately didn t have a whole lot of weight to it 3: The weight of blood tiffany d jackson pdf The main characters are well developed but really wins the day here is the suspenseful story and splendid structuring.I want to do my version of the right thing.Linktree site_link Laura McHugh site_link .