Book Review: Bloom

Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau
Published by First Second on February 12th, 2019
Genre: Graphic Novel, Contemporary
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Pages: 368
Goodreads
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Now that high school is over, Ari is dying to move to the big city with his ultra-hip band―if he can just persuade his dad to let him quit his job at their struggling family bakery. Though he loved working there as a kid, Ari cannot fathom a life wasting away over rising dough and hot ovens. But while interviewing candidates for his replacement, Ari meets Hector, an easygoing guy who loves baking as much as Ari wants to escape it. As they become closer over batches of bread, love is ready to bloom . . . that is, if Ari doesn’t ruin everything.

Writer Kevin Panetta and artist Savanna Ganucheau concoct a delicious recipe of intricately illustrated baking scenes and blushing young love, in which the choices we make can have terrible consequences, but the people who love us can help us grow.

This was damn near perfection!

So I actually received this book from Fierce Reads all the way back in October. Greetings from past Bekka! I read this the very next day after getting it and it was so, so great. Funny, endearing, full of heart, I recommend it to literally anyone.

Ari is stuck in the age old battle of dreams vs familial obligation. His parents own a bakery and the business isn't doing so well. He feels lots of pressure to stick around and help his family's business. But in his heart, he longs to move to the city with his friends and band-mates and strike out on his own as a musician. There's a lot of tension between Ari and his father in particular. I think the author managed to capture that feeling so well and make it so relatable. Maybe we don't all have family businesses at stake but I do think a lot of know what it's like to want something different for yourself than your parents may have imagined. Then comes Hector, who is in the area because his grandmother recently passed and he is tasked with the job of cleaning out and selling her house. While he's there, he takes a job at the bakery to potentially replace Ari, if Ari ever actually gets it together enough to move.

I loved their relationship. It gave me exactly all the warm, fuzzy, shippy feelings that I needed. They are so, so cute together. What I really loved was how Hector sort of challenged Ari. Despite what Ari thinks, he kind of has it easy in almost all areas of life. But Hector isn't here for the entitlement. And he also isn't here for Ari being a jackass to fit in with his jackass friends. Ari's relationship with Hector helps him grow into a much, much better person. Not that he was terrible or anything, but he was insecure and had a lot of growing to do. And I just loved Hector himself. He was just so free with his heart, welcoming anyone in. He was such a good friend to everyone he knew. And he was wholly himself, secure in the best way possible. When shit hit the fan, as it inevitably does with romcoms, I was heartbroken for him. For the entire cast, honestly. I was even surprised at my depth of feelings for Ari's dad.

I had a few minor quibbles, though. First, while I loved the art and the spare, light blue color palette, I thought Hector's illustrations were a little inconsistent. He looked very different from one frame to the next, and it happened pretty often. I recognized him because he had darker skin and a certain hair texture. Speaking of the hair texture, there was a character who appeared for no more than 5 pages maximum, but he was drawn with one thousand times the amount of detail that Hector was given. Justice for Hector please. I also thought the ending was a bit rushed. I would have gladly read 100 more pages to get the pacing right.

Seriously, though, this book is my happy place. In the last year or so, First Second has been hitting the nail right on the head with adorable, happy-making graphic novels. This romance, born over kneading bread and icing cupcakes, is just another in a long list of faves from them. It's a romance, it's coming of age, it's a story about family and friendship and growing up. There's something here for everyone and I highly recommend it.

Book Review: Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore

Book Title & Author: Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore
Published by: Feiwel & Friends on October 3rd, 2017
Genre: Magical Realism
Pages: 340
Format: ARC
Source: Gifted
Goodreads
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Synopsis:Love grows such strange things.
For nearly a century, the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds of La Pradera, the lush estate gardens that enchant guests from around the world. They’ve also hidden a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish. But then, after generations of vanishings, a strange boy appears in the gardens.
The boy is a mystery to Estrella, the Nomeolvides girl who finds him, and to her family, but he’s even more a mystery to himself; he knows nothing more about who he is or where he came from than his first name. As Estrella tries to help Fel piece together his unknown past, La Pradera leads them to secrets as dangerous as they are magical in this stunning exploration of love, loss, and family.

Review:
Is "holy wow" a phrase I can use without sounding weird, because that's the only way to describe how I feel after reading this book. Full disclosure: It took me a really long time to get through this book, but I'm going to attribute that to my health being in the crapper. When I finally picked it back up in June, I found myself captivated by the writing and the story that the writing told.

In magical realism, it generally takes me a lot longer to get into the book, but 9 times out of 10, it's totally worth it and I end up really enjoying or even loving the book. Thankfully, this was one of those 9 out of 10 times and it also made me realize I need to read ALL of McLemore's books ASAP.

Normally, writing like what was in the book bugs me because it just seems too flowery and I hate flowery writing. In this case, it worked and somehow made the book and its contents more magical. From learning about the secrets of LaPradera to witnessing two separate romances, both of which I enjoyed (which is rare) to learning the mysteries of Fel and how he fit into everything.

One of the biggest hooks for me in books, is the inclusion of family and this book had that. From the five cousins to their mothers and grandmothers etc. And this family was very close knit, which is another huge plus for me. They had all experienced loss of some sort. Whether it was loss of a lover or loss of family.

I loved the bisexual representation in this one. It was so well done and there was so much of it. More than I usually see in even a contemporary and definitely more than I see in magical realism. Ugh, it was beautiful.

Learning about the history of the Nomeolvides women was totally fascinating and I found myself hooked on that, far more than I expected to be.

Final thoughts: If it hadn't taken me so long to get through this book, I'd be giving it a full 5 stars. I definitely need to read the rest of McLemore's books and so should everyone else.

Book Review: People Like Us by Dana Mele

Book Title & Author: People Like Us by Dana Mele
Published by: G. P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers on February 27th, 2018
Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 384
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
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Synopsis:
Kay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she's reinvented herself entirely. Now she's a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl's body is found in the lake, Kay's carefully constructed life begins to topple. 
The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay's finally backed into a corner, she'll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make...not something that happened.

Review:
I was massively excited for this book. I mean, anytime someone says the words "boarding school murder mystery", I perk up my ears. Those are buzzwords for me. I was nervous though. I was so excited about another book recently and that one ended up disappointing me in a huge way. So, I was very apprehensive about starting this book.

I was hooked less than 50 pages into it and I couldn't have been more excited about that. Now this book was what I'd call a psychological thriller and by now, you all should know that psychological thrillers are my favorite thrillers of all time.

Oh my god, I was totally obsessed with this book and ended up reading the majority of it in one day. I love when I can do that because it means that I'm enjoying the book and that it's a compelling book. It's hard to find a compelling thriller sometimes, but oh boy, this ticked all the boxes.

And hello, I loved all the lesbian romances in this book. I wasn't expecting it, but it only made me love the book more. There were some lesbian love triangles too. Normally, I cannot stand love triangles, but I was so obsessed with the murder mystery aspect of this book that the love triangles were a minor annoyance for me.

I'm trying to remember where I read that this book was a cross between Pretty Little Liars & Mean Girls (Goodreads, maybe?) because that was a pretty accurate comparison. It had the Mean Girls aspect with Kay, Brie, Tai, Tricia & Cori and it had the Pretty Little Liars aspect with someone taunting someone else through technology, whether it was a computer or a cell phone.

Those girls were important to the story, but my obsession was with Nola. Oh my god, I was so obsessed with her. She was the "weird girl" who Kay enlisted to help her crack Jessica's website, where all the taunts began. I am a sucker for complex characters and although Kay was complex, so was Nola. Incidentally I called Nola, Nala for a good chunk of the book. I blame my longtime love of The Lion King for that.

The book was so creepy and atmospheric and that was one of it's many pluses. Mele did a great job at setting the scene. I could see myself at Bates. I could visualize all of the girls in my head.

I had no idea who the murderer was. I had my suspicions of a few people, but nothing totally concrete. The reveal was excellent though and although I know some people had some issues with the end, it was the end that boosted this book to a five star rating for me.

Final thoughts: This book was so atmospheric, set in a boarding school, with a murder mystery. It was totally an Alexia book, so YES you need to pick up a copy.