The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh – Small town justice.

The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh
Release Date: March 11, 2014
Source: ARC
Order: Amazon || Powell’s 

In a nutshell: Two women disappear in Henbane, a generation apart and both connected to Lucy Dane. Her mother, Lila, disappeared when she was just a baby, most presuming that she’d killed herself. Her neighbor and sometimes friend, Cheri, was found  cut into pieces, her remains stuffed in a tree. In a split timeline, we both visit the story of Lila’s arrival in Henbane in the past, and Lucy’s prodding into the secrets of her small town in the present.

We Judge Covers: Not too much to look at. I’m not sure this book would grab my attention in a bookstore, but I suppose the murky, foggy feel fits with the overall atmosphere of the story. Also, I really like the title “The Weight of Blood.” It has a dual meaning in the story, referencing both the weight of blood shed, and the weight of being connected by blood. Both things really come into play in the Dane family’s life.

Main Character: The story is mostly co-narrated by Lila and Lucy Dane, though in my head, top billing goes to Lucy. In most of the marketing I’ve seen, this book is compared to Gillian Flynn’s work, and the main difference I can see is that Lily and Lucy are likable. I’ll get a little into character development below, but for now, I will say that I did enjoy what I parts I got to know of both ladies. Lucy, in particular, had a few lovely traits, including being able to hold her own. She was a bit reckless with her own safety, but I feel like it confronted the fact that she’d always felt safe in her small town, perhaps even when she shouldn’t have.

Love Interest: Daniel. He was an okay character (seriously, I’m getting to character development) and he cared for Lucy. He was also just sort of plopped into the story. If you removed him from it, not much would suffer. He existed solely to be Lucy’s love interest and to occasionally driver her around to places.

Negligent Parents? Well, that all depends on a spoiler. I can say that in her short time with Lucy, Lila was depicted as a wonderful mother. And Lila’s dad Carl, though often away from home, really seemed to care about her well-being and safety. In fact, Carl and Lucy’s relationship was the one I was left wanting to know more about. Carl was a supporting character, but one with such a tragic story in the midst of all this, that I felt for him even as he stood in the wings of the story. I’d read a book about Carl, the gravedigger and construction worker.

1430: The small town setting was almost a character all by itself. The author didn’t have an overly descriptive still, but even so, the culture and way of life in the fictional Henbane just burst from between every line. The sense of small town justice was essential to the telling of the story. Lila, at one point, marvels at how everyone knows your secrets in a small town, and in the present, her daughter marvels at how people still manage to keep their secrets. Both things are true.

#MEH: This book was caught in a bit of an awkward middle: it was not meaty enough to be plot driven and it was not deep enough to be character driven. It claimed a middle ground that slowed the story a fair bit. I read the book in one sitting (it took a bit more than 4 hours), and even so I didn’t feel any immediacy. It was a slow peel of layers. If the Ozarks were reluctant to give up its secrets, so was this book.

In the meanwhile, you superficially touched all the characters involved. They each had their own personalities (some like Birdie and Gabby who I really liked) but I didn’t walk away from the book feeling like I knew much about them. It was more of a snapshot of people, and how were they affected either by Lucy or by Lila. We didn’t delve much deeper than that, an observation that really stuck with me after I finished the last page.

The pacing wasn’t something that significantly handicapped the story of me, personally, though I can see people rating this lower than I will because of that fact, especially if they were expecting any sort of thriller.

The End: A dose of contrivance went into the end. Lucy finally puts some key things together, all because her adoptive grandmother tells her some information she’d never found fit to tell her in 17 years, or in the 200+ pages prior to that point in the story. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, either. They are just chatting and suddenly Birdie’s all, “and this is what happened to your mother when she got here.” It was a little off putting.

Because the story develops at such a slow and steady pace, chances are that you will see the big twists and reveals coming. Even though there is a clear villain in the story, even this person has some good (though not at all redeeming) qualities. And even the “good” have questionable  morals and that personal sense of justice I mentioned before. But there is a point where you read a development and clearly peg who will end up with blood on their hands.

And the end plays pretty much exactly as I guessed it would.

Away Message Worthy Quote: “I want to do my version of the right thing.”

For Traumateers who: read anything by Gillian Flynn and thought, “MAN. I wish this wasn’t as dark and creepy and I could like a character and that also, it was a whole less like Gillian Flynn!” And for those who don’t mind slow and steady stories, with rich settings and likable characters living in the moral gray.

 

Final Grade: B

 

This book was provided by Random House c/o 20sb for ‘The Weight of Blood” blog tour! You can learn more about the book by visiting http://weightofblood.com/. Plus, we’re giving away a copy of The Weight of Blood to one of our US readers. If you’d like to a chance to win, you have two ways to enter: (1) leave a comment below and/or (2) Tweet out a link to this post with the hashtag #TheWeightofBlood! One lucky winner will be picked on the book’s release date, March 11th. Good luck!