The Weight of Blood / Laura McHugh

   I finished listening to this book recently, and I've been mulling it over since and trying to figure out how to review it and what to say about it. And so: bullet points.

• Multiple POV in multiple time-settings! I am a fan of this device. A then and now structure with slowly revealed mysteries? Yes please. 
• SMALL TOWN, DARK SECRETS, you heard it here first. 
• A lot of sexual violence (however, it's violence that comes with PTSD, which is a point for the book).
• A+ audiobook, excellent voicing.
• Lots of "who is family, what is family" questioning, but not terribly deep.
• Everyone has a great name.
• Here's the first sentence: "That Cheri Stoddard was found at all was the thing that set people on edge, even more so than the condition of her body" WHAT, right?
• This is really good for a debut page-turner-y novel, honestly I have very few complaints. 

   SO: Lucy was a friend-of-a-sort to Cheri, who disappeared and then was found cut into pieces and discarded in a tree by the river about a year later. The nature of her death and condition of her body combined with the discovery of a necklace that belonged to Cheri lead Lucy to start an investigation into her death. Where was she (clearly: nearby)? Who killed her (clearly: someone Lucy probably knows, this is, after all, a small town with dark secrets)? How did her parts get into the tree? AND: what is the connection, if any, between Cheri's disappearance/death and the disappearance/apparent suicide years earlier of Lucy's mother Lila? MYSTERIES.  

   Lucy/Lila/Cheri live/d in a small town called Henbane in the Ozarks which made me think of Winter's Bone and how I need to read that book since I saw and loved the movie. There's a moment in the book where for some reason the characters are like "hen bane [the plant] is totes medicinal" but hen bane is a VERY POISONOUS PLANT, do not eat it for medicine. Just a warning here.

   The pace of the book is spot-on and the characterization is good and even though some parts are frustrating it is, overall, a good read. Nothing earth-shattering, but a good read nonetheless. There's some "if you liked Gone Girl you'll like this" but every book written by a woman with a mystery in it has that description lately, so WHATEVER, GONE GIRL, I didn't even like you. I would more say that this book is weirdly reminiscent of Neverhome but not in any way that I can actually explain.

   P.S. If there's one thing we all love it is Awesome Historical Ladies, and here are nine who I mostly hadn't heard of, THANKS A LOT, silencing of women's history.