Where the Line Bleeds follows twin Black boys in the summer right after their high school graduation in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. One of the boys gets a job working at the docks, but his twin turns to selling drugs in order to help their grandmother who cares for them make ends meet. It is a powerful portrait of the options facing these young men as they try to rise up out of poverty.

Like all of Ward’s novels, the writing here is quiet and powerful. The narration will suddenly shift in POV, which is at times jarring but not enough to pull you out of the story. Her characters feel real and I enjoyed the dynamics between the twins and the rest of the characters in the story. This isn’t a plot-driven story but one that focuses on these the choices made by the twins and their consequences. This wasn’t my favorite Ward novel (Sing, Unburied, Sing is) but it was wonderful to return to the world of Bois Sauvage and Ward’s style one more time.