The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson

ARC, 406 pages
Release Date: September 6, 2022
Published by: Katherine Tegen Books
Read from: August 10- September 2, 2022
Stand-alone
Source: Publisher (I received a copy of this book from the Publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)
TW: Death, Vomit, Police Brutality, Racism, Blackface, N-word usage, Drinking, Decapitation, Bullying, Child Abuse
For Readers Interested In: Thrillers, Carrie by Stephen King, Retellings, YA

    New York Times bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson ramps up the horror and tackles America’s history and legacy of racism in this suspenseful YA novel following a biracial teenager as her Georgia high school hosts its first integrated prom.
     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.

*MY THOUGHTS*

I have been waiting on this book since I’d heard about it. I didn’t care about anything else this whole year besides this book. So when I sent an email begging the publisher for it, I never expected to get one. See if you know anything about me, I’ve been a Stephen King fan girl for a long time. I read It in 8th grade for an English project. Misery is one of my all time favorite books. I still haven’t read Carrie, but only because I accidentally saw the movie first. But now this one has definitely made me want to go back and get my hands on it!

As a King fan girl I was a little upset that I didn’t read it and couldn’t compare it to this. But the way this book compares to the movie (even the most recent one) was so good. I mean so much so that I had a tab for stuff that happened in Carrie. I really think Jackson’s love letter to Carrie is a perfect way to pay homage. And like if I’m being real, it’s been proven that y’all like remakes and that y’all like Stephen King, so is there options for this? Because Lordt this is the remake that y’all need to do. And I really hope that y’all do. Because not only is this remake different, but the way it’s different is so important. Especially the ending. I tabbed like a whole paragraph at one point. So, so good.

If you’ve read through my whole review, starting from the top, you probably noticed a lot of trigger/content warnings. There are MANY of them in there. To be honest, I probably missed some. But even still, it’s not something that we haven’t seen in the news. Even recently. Unfortunately it’s something that still happens in the world we live in. Seeing it in this book was hard, but it was hard because it was so true. And Lordt, once I realized that the segregated proms were actually still a thing in 2014, I was in shock. So Jackson writing this is basically based on real life. Any of the bigots that will try to get upset about it, actually really can’t. It’s sad really.

Now for the book itself, it FELT like the plot kind of dragged a bit. Now if you’ve read or watched the movie, you know that this is because the beginning is like a set up and introducing the story. Especially since you don’t actually GET Maddy. It picks up as you go through each of the different 3 parts. And when you get to Part 3, it’s like 0-100 lol At one point I even had to take a break because my heart was racing and I had already bit off my nails. I was so nervous of what was coming. The build up and anticipation in this book is like phenomenal.

I DO wish I had an audio version of this. With it being a podcast like setting, and having different people there, I HOPE they do this in a full cast. It really has the potential to be amazeballs. It’s definitely deserving of one. I really hope Katherine Tegen does right by this audio lol I guess I’ll have to go back and read that version too.

I DO wish she had a bit more descriptors about the setting. I just couldn’t picture what this terrible place that still had a segregated prom in 2014 looked like. Because looking at the pictures of the actual place online, it looked like a regular place. Not set in old ways or anything like that. And I think that’s what made me feel weird about it. Because I realized then that in some places they’re still cloaked, whereas in the rest of the world, they’ve all mostly outed themselves. And I think that’s the scariest part of all.

The ending itself was terrible tho lol I am not a fan of open-ended books. I wanted to know EXACTLY what happened and I wanted justice for everyone. I don’t want to go too into it because spoilers, but I still really wanted to see them get what they deserved after all the things that they’d all done. Including Maddy.

I could ramble about this for ever. There’s way too much I want to say about this lol I don’t want to say it’s like a warm hug since I’m so familiar with the original story and this version was so close, but I don’t really know how to say it. It felt like I was watching the original and I really enjoyed my time I spent with this one.

Overall, I give this