Review: The Weight of Blood By: Laura McHugh

The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I stayed up all night reading this, lost within it's pages, refusing to put it down. I grew up with that understanding that blood is thicker than water, and I also grew up knowing that only blood comes from wounds. The weight of blood is a heavy thing. Where the landscape of the Ozarks hold caves as deep as the secrets as the people that make their home upon it's land, secrets that go deep into families and flow faster than the river to escape the light of day.
Told from different points of view, spanning across different points of time, yet all working to an apex that will balance everything out. The book begins with Lucy missing her neighbor, Cheri. Cheri was a girl nobody would miss, a forgettable "special" girl from a troubled home that most figured ran away - until her dismembered body was found in a tree by the river a year later. Lucy can't get over this, especially since the mystery of her mother who went missing over ten years ago has never been solved, so she starts asking questions she might never want the answers to. Flashes to Lila (Lucy's mother) and all those years ago are just part of the mystery, and both stories are interwoven.
I can't believe that this is the author's first novel - intense, haunting, jump at the shadows type of book, filled with amazing characters. Although the ending did seem a bit rushed, it was good and worth the read - this is an author to look for, a book to be a must read and enjoy (you will not put this one down).


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