Helpful Score: 1
A book told in alternating chapters by a mother who disappeared and Lucy, her daughter who tries to find out what happened to her.
It was a little slow at first, but once you get into the story, it's hard to put down. Lucy is well loved by her father and her uncle, but finds out some hidden, dark secrets that devastate her.
They were offensive and distasteful and left me with a bad feeling. However the book pulled me in and I had to read to the end.
It was a little slow at first, but once you get into the story, it's hard to put down. Lucy is well loved by her father and her uncle, but finds out some hidden, dark secrets that devastate her.
They were offensive and distasteful and left me with a bad feeling. However the book pulled me in and I had to read to the end.
Helpful Score: 1
I will give a book a fair chance but after 100 pages and it doesn't keep my interest then I give it up and move on to something else. That is the case with this one, I found it to be just ho hum, droll, and really a waste of time.
Not much to be said about it, it is written in the form of one chapter is about Lucy (the daughter) then the next chapter is going into the past with Lila (the mother) who disappeared and that is the way of the entire book, not my kind of reading.
I didn't find anything interesting about it at all and as you turn the pages and expect something to happen then don't hold your breath because it is very slow moving with very little happening in the first 100 pages and I don't like writing like that.
Even though I live in the Ozarks I can't relate to the fact that there are 'backwoods' people anymore, maybe there is but sometimes stories just make a simple life sound very sordid as this one does and this has already been written over and over.
Just not my kind of reading.
Not much to be said about it, it is written in the form of one chapter is about Lucy (the daughter) then the next chapter is going into the past with Lila (the mother) who disappeared and that is the way of the entire book, not my kind of reading.
I didn't find anything interesting about it at all and as you turn the pages and expect something to happen then don't hold your breath because it is very slow moving with very little happening in the first 100 pages and I don't like writing like that.
Even though I live in the Ozarks I can't relate to the fact that there are 'backwoods' people anymore, maybe there is but sometimes stories just make a simple life sound very sordid as this one does and this has already been written over and over.
Just not my kind of reading.
Helpful Score: 1
A mystery, a love story and finally an answer. A very good read.
Review first published on my blog: http://memoriesfrombooks.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-weight-of-blood-novel.html
Lucy Dane is growing up in a small town. The townspeople still speak of how her mother disappeared when Lucy was very young. It was a mystery that was never solved.
Now, Lucy's friend Cheri has disappeared and is found murdered. Are the two events related? Is it a coincidence? Is there more going on in this sleepy little town than meets the eye? Lucy sets out to discover the truth. What she finds about herself, her family, and her community is beyond what she could have imagined.
Without giving a spoiler, I did not expect this book to end up where it did or take on the issues that it did. Henbane is described as a small town in the middle of the Ozark Mountains. The plot line is very unexpected given the small-town, rural setting.
The book goes back and forth between two perspectives - Lila as she arrives alone in the town on Henbane and Lucy as she seeks to determine what happened to her mother and to Cheri. Since so many of the characters are the same in both time periods, I found myself sometimes getting a little lost in the story. I had to make sure I read the chapter heading and focused on the names to remember whose story I was in.
A serious and sad book about family and violence. A well-written debut novel. I do look forward to see what Laura McHugh writes next.
*** Reviewed based on a publisher's galley received through NetGalley ***
Lucy Dane is growing up in a small town. The townspeople still speak of how her mother disappeared when Lucy was very young. It was a mystery that was never solved.
Now, Lucy's friend Cheri has disappeared and is found murdered. Are the two events related? Is it a coincidence? Is there more going on in this sleepy little town than meets the eye? Lucy sets out to discover the truth. What she finds about herself, her family, and her community is beyond what she could have imagined.
Without giving a spoiler, I did not expect this book to end up where it did or take on the issues that it did. Henbane is described as a small town in the middle of the Ozark Mountains. The plot line is very unexpected given the small-town, rural setting.
The book goes back and forth between two perspectives - Lila as she arrives alone in the town on Henbane and Lucy as she seeks to determine what happened to her mother and to Cheri. Since so many of the characters are the same in both time periods, I found myself sometimes getting a little lost in the story. I had to make sure I read the chapter heading and focused on the names to remember whose story I was in.
A serious and sad book about family and violence. A well-written debut novel. I do look forward to see what Laura McHugh writes next.
*** Reviewed based on a publisher's galley received through NetGalley ***
Absolutely riveting! A great mystery with believable characters, and how sometimes people administer their own justice without interference from outsiders. Excellent!
