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A review by kingofthehillxl
The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson
5.0
This book was so fun! Disclaimer: I have not read nor watched any version of Carrie. Therefore, I could not tell you where adaptation differed from original. What I assumed is that all the race parts were from Jackson’s mind and the witch part too, but now that I think about I probably can’t say that with any certainty either. The only thing I know about Carrie is that the prom goes about the same for her with character differences I assume. Content Warning for racial violence!
Now to give a review I would say this is one of my favorite Jackson books, and part of me is starting to think of her as a King in her own right and nothing made me realize it like this one. The first Jackson novel I read was Monday’s Not Coming, so I assumed she was writing in the vain of a Sapphire. I see now that Monday’s Not Coming is more of an outlier in her works than a standard. I can’t say that definitively because of course I haven’t read all of Jackson’s works, but I say that to say that horror/thriller comes across as the home genre of Jackson’s work. Weight of Blood reads as a work written by someone in their element.
If I had a gripe about anything it would be that occasionally I found the news/book/podcast asides to be not as integral to the story here as in some of Jackson’s other works, it is unclear with the podcast particularly if the podcast speakers are supposed to know what we know or if they are discovering their own facts independent of the reader. I didn’t find them too distracting though, and they do break up the story in some particularly heavy sections that serve to make the overall story more digestible even if it interrupts the flow. It’s used the best at the end, as a way to tie up the discussion that Jackson is presenting with the book.
Overall I had a great time reading this. The world is rich. The characters are life like, and the prose is vivid. I hope that Jackson finds a way to expand upon the world she creates in the novel because it is super interesting (no pun intended).
Now to give a review I would say this is one of my favorite Jackson books, and part of me is starting to think of her as a King in her own right and nothing made me realize it like this one. The first Jackson novel I read was Monday’s Not Coming, so I assumed she was writing in the vain of a Sapphire. I see now that Monday’s Not Coming is more of an outlier in her works than a standard. I can’t say that definitively because of course I haven’t read all of Jackson’s works, but I say that to say that horror/thriller comes across as the home genre of Jackson’s work. Weight of Blood reads as a work written by someone in their element.
If I had a gripe about anything it would be that occasionally I found the news/book/podcast asides to be not as integral to the story here as in some of Jackson’s other works, it is unclear with the podcast particularly if the podcast speakers are supposed to know what we know or if they are discovering their own facts independent of the reader. I didn’t find them too distracting though, and they do break up the story in some particularly heavy sections that serve to make the overall story more digestible even if it interrupts the flow. It’s used the best at the end, as a way to tie up the discussion that Jackson is presenting with the book.
Overall I had a great time reading this. The world is rich. The characters are life like, and the prose is vivid. I hope that Jackson finds a way to expand upon the world she creates in the novel because it is super interesting (no pun intended).