Critically acclaimed author David Joy, whose debut, Where All Light Tends to Go, was hailed as “a savagely moving novel that will likely become an important addition to the great body of Southern literature” (The Huffington Post), returns to the mountains of North Carolina with a powerful story about the inescapable weight of the past. A combat veteran returned from war, Thad Broom can’t leave … from war, Thad Broom can’t leave the hardened world of Afghanistan behind, nor can he forgive himself for what he saw there. His mother, April, is haunted by her own demons, a secret trauma she has carried for years. Between them is Aiden McCall, loyal to both but unable to hold them together. Connected by bonds of circumstance and duty, friendship and love, these three lives are blown apart when Aiden and Thad witness the accidental death of their drug dealer and a riot of dope and cash drops in their laps. On a meth-fueled journey to nowhere, they will either find the grit to overcome the darkness or be consumed by it.
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If I learned anything from Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, it’s that if you stumble upon a mass supply of anything drug related, just leave it alone and run like hell. The Weight of This World has this same dark, dire, but very realistic quality to it. I’ve been told it’s called grit lit. I found a semi-definition online that described it as “people using weed and pills and sometimes meth. They’re usually white, usually rednecks, Snopesian. Broke, divorced, violent – they’re not good country people.” No, no they’re not.
An event that had my jaw drop so fast it hurt left these characters with a mass supply of drugs that they try to turn into a jackpot of cash, but there’s much, much more to this story than this simple plot. There’s family dynamics, domestic abuse, war-related PTSD, trauma, poverty, drugs, crime, and a ton of complex emotions that drag you down like quicksand. Very dark in a genre that is it’s very own. I am so glad I stumbled upon superb reviews for this book that caught my interest. This book is gritty, nasty, dark, drugged up, and bloodstained. But it’s real. It’s about the loss of innocence and how that happens. It leaves the reader with questions about humanity and our American world, and the title is oh so appropriate. Check it out.
This was a really good book. I actually didn’t plan to read this book when I did but when I had it off the shelf and my eyes landed on the first page, I didn’t want to put it down. This book starts out incredibly strong and kept me turning pages as quickly as I could until the very end. I am so glad that I picked this book up when I did.
If you are looking for a book that will leave you with a smile on your face, this isn’t that book. This book is dark, gritty, and full of violence. It is the story of two men who are shaped by things that are outside of their control and just how far they can be pushed. As the book opens, we see Aiden’s father kill his mother and then himself. He eventually comes to live with his friend Thad, a boy that nobody ever really wanted. Jobs are scarce and options are limited so Aiden and Thad do what they need to in order to have enough money to get by and secure their next high. When Aiden and Thad find themselves in a situation to get a step up, they jump on it but things go wrong almost immediately. It was rough watching these two men navigate the things that were thrown at them and I wondered just how far they were willing to go.
The writing was superb. I was taken by this story and thought that the descriptions really helped to bring the story to life. Even when the characters were making poor choices, I understood what brought them to the decisions that they made. I felt their desperation to find a way to a better life. There were many moments in this book that made me think.
I would recommend this book to others. This was a violent, dark book that explored just how far the bonds of friendship can be stretched. I would mention that there is an animal death that may bother some readers. I cannot wait to read more of David Joy’s work.
Angry people making bad decision after bad decision. There were a lot of horrific events in this book, which should have elicited strong emotion (other than just shock), but unfortunately I didn’t feel connected to anyone or anything in this story. We’re TOLD how the characters feel about things, but we’re not made to feel it. Maybe it was because there isn’t a single likable character, not even in the anti-hero sense? I don’t know.