The Weight of Blood

This young adult book, written by Tiffany D. Jackson, follows a biracial adolescent as her Georgia high school celebrates its first mixed prom. Jackson turns up the horror and addresses racism's history and impact in America.

When asked about what transpired on prom night, Springville residents—those who are still alive, anyway—all give the same response. By Maddy's hand.

Madison Washington, an outsider at her small-town high school in Georgia, has always been the object of bullies' taunting. She coped with it since she had more important issues to attend to. Up until the next morning, when an unexpected downpour makes her most well-kept secret—that she is birthacial—visible. At her father Thomas Washington's insistence, she has lived her whole life pretending to be white.

Student leaders at Springville High devise a plan to transform their school's reputation after a widely shared bullying video exposes the school's racist past. They decide to hold the first-ever mixed prom as a demonstration of togetherness. Maddy wonders whether she can ever have a normal life when her Black celebrity quarterback boyfriend, who is popular with the white class president, persuades her to ask him out on a date.

However, some of her peers aren't quite over her yet. They are also unaware that Maddy is harboring a second secret, one that might endanger their lives.