I have read all of Jackson’s books and The Weight of Blood is truly indescribable. It has a signature Jackson flair to these complex characters, but feels different than her past books. If you’re a long time fan, you have to read this one! Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts.
Summary
When Springville residents—at least the ones still alive—are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation… Maddy did it.
An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she’s dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing for white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington.
After a viral bullying video pulls back the curtain on Springville High’s racist roots, student leaders come up with a plan to change their image: host the school’s first integrated prom as a show of unity. The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar quarterback boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date, leaving Maddy wondering if it’s possible to have a normal life.
But some of her classmates aren’t done with her just yet. And what they don’t know is that Maddy still has another secret… one that will cost them all their lives.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
The Weight of Blood, predictably, broke my heart in only the ways Tiffany D. Jackson can. Not only did the racism set fire to my bones and stoked the fire within me, but also Jackson’s signature complex and compelling characters. The casual microaggressions, the explicit comments, all the racism chilled my bones in how familiar some of it felt. How The Weight of Blood certainly has supernatural leans, but the basis of this world is very much our own. And one that is not as far removed from today as we might want to believe.
Podcast clippings from the ‘future’ gives The Weight of Blood a feeling of scope. Of the ways we cannot escape public perception, the racism of our world, or the opinions of others. The ways society, institutions, and figures of authority excuse the racism, refusing to do anything. And my heart immediately and instantly went out to Maddy. To the ways in which she is the product of her deeply racist father and upbringing, to the general racism of our culture which prioritizes whiteness, and to performative activism.
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If you want to read a book about a main character who is persecuted, manipulated, and complicates this notion of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, pick up The Weight of Blood. To see Maddy not only through the pain we know she feels, but the lenses of everyone else – at the whim of public opinion. With the pieces falling into place to her own downfall. What happens when we are pushed to the edge – and over. And who is to blame when so many things fail us? If you have loved Jackson’s signature difficult dilemmas and characters who twist our insides, you have to read The Weight of Blood. Find The Weight of Blood on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org, & The Book Depository.