The Blood Lie

The Blood Lie
Shirley Reva Vernick
141 pages
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
Source: Goodreads win!
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

In 1928 a four-year-old girl in the small town of Massena goes missing and soon the blame is placed on sixteen-year-old Jack Pool, his family, and other Jewish community members.  Several of the local citizens on Massena believe the local Jewish population has killed the young girl as a blood sacrifice for their upcoming holy day, Yom Kippur.

A short review for a short book: What a heartbreaking novel.  There was a lot of prejudice early on in the twentieth century and this book really shows that off.  The book as a whole was really well written and a great glimpse into a few days of the life of a small town in Upstate New York.  I liked the added plot line of Jack's crush on Emaline, I thought that added an extra depth to the story.

In the author's afterword she mentions specific examples of how this kind of prejudice still exists in our world.  A lot of us don't see that on a daily basis and I think this book is a good reminder that we still have leaps to make as a society to overcome prejudices of all kinds.

Four stars to this really well-written historical YA novel.  It's short and can be read in a couple hours so I do suggest you take the time and read it.

PS: Even though I won this book and it was provided to me for free, that did not affect my review.