The Weight of Blood is a 2022 young adult horror/thriller novel by Tiffany D. Jackson. Biracial Maddy Washington has been passing as white her whole life, at the insistence of her racist father Thomas. When her secret comes out, so does the racist history of her Georgia high school, leading to the first integrated prom. Maddy is invited by star quarterback Kenny, at the insistence of his white girlfriend. However, after Maddy is targeted by another cruel prank at prom, it turns out that she's hiding another secret — and this one will cost them all their lives.
As that plot summary might suggest, the book is a Homage to Carrie.
This novel contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: Released in 2022, the main story is set in the summer of 2014.
- Abusive Parents:
- Thomas is severely emotionally and physically abusive to Maddy.
- Mr. Scott is overbearing towards Kenny and pressures him to excel at football regardless of his son's wishes. He's also insulting toward Maddy.
- Adaptational Diversity: Though the book is more of a homage to Carrie as noted above, its main change is in resetting it among racial dynamics. Maddy (Carrie) is mixed-race (her mother is black), and Kenny (Tommy) is black. There is also a much larger black presence at Springville High, which gets mentioned and shown.
- Adaptational Sympathy: Though Thomas does still try to kill Maddy and is physically abusive towards her, he's also a good chunk more sympathetic than Margaret White with The Reveal that his abusive mother also had Maddy's powers (justifying his fear and hatred of them), and his perspective that he is (admittedly in an abusive way) protecting her from Springville's racism.
- Alpha Bitch: Jules, as to be expected from an Expy of Chris Hargensen.
- Beta Bitch: Kayleigh is the worst of Jules's followers and helps her set up Maddie at the prom.
- Big Bad: Jules Marshall is the leader of Maddie's bullies who torments her every chance she gets, and the mastermind of the prom prank.
- Blackface: Jules wears blackface while wearing her "Maddy" costume.
- But Not Too Black: Discussed. Jules presumes that Wendy would prefer her future children with Kenny to be light-skinned, like Maddy (Wendy concedes that she probably would but tries hard to seem less racist about it). However, it ultimately doesn't lead to Maddy getting any preferential treatment in the student body. In fact, it's presented as being worse for her that she is too 'white' for the black kids and too 'black' for the white kids.
- Curly Hair Is Ugly: The racial implications are discussed here. Maddy naturally has a curly Afro, but Thomas forces her to straighten her hair (burning her in the process) and brainwashes her into believing that her natural hair is ugly so she can pass as white. It gets played out when Maddy's natural hair is revealed and she's viciously bullied for it.
- Distaff Counterpart: The fanatically religious single mother Margaret White is replaced with the fanatically racist single father Thomas Washington.
- Family Eye Resemblance: While Maddy is biracial, it's mentioned by the podcasters that she has her father Thomas's striking blue eyes.
- Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: Maddy's favorite film is Imitation of Life (1934). It makes sense, as a then-groundbreaking film about a mixed-race girl passing for white.
- Expy:
- Maddy = Carrie.
- Thomas = Margaret White's Spear Counterpart.
- Kenny = Tommy.
- Wendy = Sue.
- Jules = Chris.
- Brady = Billy.
- Kayleigh = Norma.
- Karma Houdini: Jules survives the massacre and lies about Maddy to make herself look like the victim, and still shows no remorse for her actions.
- Meta Twist:
- Carrie's surname is White. Maddy's surname is Washington. However, Maddy is forced to be "white" by her father - she's actually biracial - both because of his racism and because they live in extremely racist small-town Georgia.
- "The Black Prom" - which was the name of Carrie's massacre - is here the name of one segregated prom in Springville (there's a black prom and a white prom).
- The cover makes it appear that Maddy is doused in blood, similar to Carrie. When Jules and Brady steal paint from her father's store, it appears that they're going to use red paint instead. It turns out to be white paint, to mock Maddie for being biracial. She ends up covered in Kenny's blood later.
- Never My Fault: After the video of her bullying Maddy and her blackface costume go viral, Jules gets her college acceptance revoked. She decides that this is everyone else's fault for making a big deal of a "joke".
- Pass Fail: Maddy is "exposed" as mixed-race when her hair gets wet, revealing her curls.
- Police Brutality: Deputy Ross severely beats Kenny for accidentally knocking into him.
- Shout-Out:
- The milkshake place is called Sal's.
- One of the students is named Jackie Torrance.
- Show Within a Show: Every chapter includes excerpts from a fictional true crime podcast investigating the events of the prom years later.
- Some of My Best Friends Are X: Jules uses this excuse when claiming she's not racist.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Jules (though she loses an arm), Kenny, and Maddy all survive instead of dying as in the original novel.
- Token Black Friend: Kenny is the only black member of the cool kid clique at Springville. The implications are discussed. He feels pressure to act like he's cool with it when his white friends say racist things and to not "make a big deal" of being black (as he criticizes his activist younger sister Kali for doing, much to her annoyance). The racist bullying of Maddy and the pro-segregated-prom arguments are finally too much for him to put up with, though.
