Reviews with content warning for Cancer - The Weight of Blood

Another stellar novel from Tiffany D. Jackson.

This modern-day Carrie retelling brings in classic Stephen King pops with the well-known Tiffany D. Jackson surprises.

I have not read Carrie, but I believe I watched the original movie a few years ago. Jackson did a fantastic job creating a modern retelling of this horror story while integrating in important conversations around race and the oppression that Black individuals still face today. This story may be fantasy but it is relevant. The events take place in 2014, not too far back from where we are today, though we are still seeing the racial bullying, the white supremacy mindset, and the horrific treatment of black folks (male-presenting, specifically) by police officers.

Like many have said before me, though I knew mostly what the ending would bring, I was not able to put this book down. Jackson expertly knows how to keep a reader invested in the story.

I also want to note that this book does come with a heavy content warning list, so please glace over that before reading if you feel this book might be triggering in any way.

Thank you, Ms. Jackson, for creating yet another powerful, emotional, relevant, and capturing story. I will absolutely be recommending this to my readers in the library.

Content Warnings

thelibraryofrae's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

Content Warnings

kell_xavi's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional tense medium-paced

4.0

I hope Stephen King reads this book, I think it lives up to Carrie well—I haven’t read the novel, but loved Sissy Spacek in the film. Tiffany D. Jackson pays wonderful homage to the story of Carrie while making the motivations, cultural conditions, characters, and love story wholly her own. I liked Maddie Washington and Kendrick Scott, Callie, even Wendy in her complicated reckoning with expectation and entitlement and whiteness.

Some parts of the story snowball so perfectly, accounting for the interplay of reputation, yearning, safety, anger, and belonging in each of the characters. Jules and the cops (the police brutality was the most horrific scene for me to read) are demarcated as the villains of the story, fitting tropes of the rich, white, rural, and violent with a believability that comes from reading about Southern white customs and Black Lives Matter protests across the USA.

Jackson has been a favourite YA writer of mine since Let Me Hear a Rhyme, and this is a star work of hers. The author doesn’t give answers, she tells us that teenagers’ lives are complicated, their politics and their decisions sometimes messy and their reasoning isn’t always articulate. I like that. Callie’s anger at Kenny for sympathizing with the light-skinned Black girl, but not seeing the harm of her passing or the trauma inflicted on Callie herself because of intentional, direct racism, was one of the strongest scenes of the book. The mess of Maddie, made to revere and perform whiteness, ashamed and internalizing her father’s racism, was written without needing to make it clean or okay. Kenny’s sharing in a similar cultural evasion causes harm and makes him complicit, and we can see that while also seeing his love and his desperation and his ingrained passivity to make him worthy of his father’s dreams.

The horror part of this novel is pretty contained to the prom scene, and even then, is gruesome mainly from a distance. Jackson mentions brains on a dress, decapitation, a few other specific deaths, but a lot of the carnage is fire, floating cars, blood on the ground, blanks to be filled in. The “pranks,” Mr. Washington’s verbal and physical abuse, and police violence are smartly written into the novel in a way that builds the horror and disgust, builds desire for revenge and suspense for what we know will happen. It’s a satisfying climax followed by a satisfying ending, while staying within the borders of my (relatively low) tolerance for body horror.

Content Warnings

imstephtacular's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.25

Content Warnings

a_libra_library's review against another edition

Go to review page

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)

Content Warnings

More...