I received a free copy from NetGalley. Lucy wants to know what happened to her mom Lila who disappeared when Lucy was little, after Lucy's friend also disappears. I spent most of the book telling Lucy to run and leave town because her mom didn't, and you just know something bad must have happened to her because she didn't.

The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh was intriguing to me because it was compared to Gone Girl.

This small town murder mystery was filled with family secrets! Lucy's friend's disappearance reminds her of her mother Lila's disappearance years earlier. The more Lucy digs into her friend's life, the more secrets are drudged up.

When does the weight of right verses wrong out weigh the weight of blood (family)? That is the struggles within this book. I liked how this book didn't piece everything together for the reader. The author allows us to form our own opinion of what happened.

I did not have a chance to read this book, but it is effecting my feedback rating. I am giving books 5 stars that I haven't read to improve my feedback rating. I am not recommending the book for my classroom or students since I have not read the book. There needs to be a better system of leaving feedback for books not read.

McHugh has a gift as a storyteller, She is able to make the reader see and feel the horror or what happened in such a beautiful place.

"It occurred to her then that there was a reason age drained the pleasure out of life, slowly stripping away all the things you enjoyed or took for granted. It was so you wouldn't need convincing when the time came. You'd be ready, because everything good in life was gone."

I found The Weight of Blood to be pretty intriguing. It was told over two timelines, from the point of view of the mother, and then years later from the daughter"s point of view. The author writes in a way that made me really feel like I could understand what it was like to live in this small town. It helped a bit that I could picture the area a bit from the Netflix show, Ozarks. I'm not sure what I was expecting but the sex trafficking took me as a bit of a surprise. I liked the writing style and would consider reading this author again.

Here we have a story of two disappearances that happen a generation apart. Lucy Dane is a high school student in the Ozarks whose friend has gone missing. Coincidentally, Lucy's mother disappeared when Lucy was a baby. When Lucy decides to try to find out what happened to her friend, she stumbles on something much darker and more disturbing than just the one disappearance.

Interspersed with Lucy's search is the story of her mother, how she came to be in the Ozarks and what happened to her there. This is a dark, gritty, disturbing read that I really enjoyed. It has a wonderful sense of place, both the setting and the characters are wonderfully drawn. It isn't much of a whodunnit - it's more of a how-and-why-dunnit. I look forward to reading Laura McHugh's next book soon.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for providing a copy for an unbiased review.

This is one of those I loved to hate. It was deep and dark and heavy. I'm not sure I liked that, but I kept reading anyway. I felt that some of the stuff was added for shock value and yet, like a train wreck, I just couldn't look away. Sex trafficking? Sexual abuse of a disabled girl? I was way excited for this mystery to end so we could nail this guy! All the small town/redneck stereotypes were pulled out for this one. Some of it I felt was over the top, really pushing it. Being compared to Gillian Flynn, who is not my favorite actually, I had pretty low expectations. Not that Gillian Flynn isn't a good author, she is, but her books are very dark and depressing and not entertaining to me whatsoever. So I did have low expectations of enjoyment and high expectations of dark and deep. Maybe that's why I kept going, it was expected, and she is a very talented author. What really frustrated/disappointed me was when we find the end of the trail, half of it is conveniently ended and the other half just disappears and that's the end of it. What about all the other girls? It just continues? It was a very frustrating ending.
I loved the dual point of view, and the way it went back and forth chronologically. The characters were not my favorite. I wasn't super thrilled when she started finding clues to the murder and just picking them up her teenage self.... Not the best way to solve a murder and/or end a sex trafficking ring. I did like that she brought light to an ever growing problem and it definitely wasn't as gory/detailed as it could have been. The mystery itself was good, and I love a good mystery, that also kept me going. This isn't really my type of book, so it was more just not for me than that it wasn't good. Like I said, she is a talented author, she can tell a story and a mystery, but I like closure and entertainment knowing that people grow, or things got better or something positive comes out of it. I know the dark disturbing things that happen out there, I know that reality sucks, reading about them for entertainment is not my idea of a good time.

I finally got to read this book after being approved for a galley way longer ago than I wanted. Many apologies for the delayed feedback.

The main challenge that I had with this book was that I was very interested in Lila's back story and in Lucy's story but could have done without the side story of Cheri's disappearance. I understand why they brought her in as it did tie in with the end of the book but I felt like it took too much time away from the core story.

The setting of the Ozarks was kind of perfect for the story. Many people don't realize how much trafficking comes through the tourist heavy midwestern areas as they are on central throughways to major cities and it is easy to hide victims. Thank you for bringing this to light.

You'll never think of small-town life the same way again after reading Laura McHugh's chilling debut, The Weight of Blood. Part "Twin Peaks," part Tana French, the novel opens just after the body of 18-year-old Cheri has been found stuffed into a tree trunk. Lucy Dane may have been the troubled Cheri's only friend, and after turning up some disturbing evidence she becomes determined to track down Cheri's killer—especially since her own mother's disappearance some 15 years before has still never been solved. As Lucy's quest proceeds, she begins to unearth some of the town's darkest secrets, some of which involve her own family.

We asked McHugh, who lives in Missouri with her family, a few questions about her new book.

I really liked the Ozark Mountain setting of this mystery. The book kept me interested, and I enjoyed seeing how things played out.