A review by greenkangaroolibrarian
Bloom by Kevin Panetta

3.0

This graphic novel has potential but, at least for me, it is missing some things. I read it slow to make sure I was not misjudging it, but it still comes out lower in scale. The illustrations are nice and I enjoyed what the story was trying to portray, however, that is where it ends. There are limited transitions in this novel (at the end of one page you are having a conversation that does not feel completed and you turn the page only to find that we've jumped in time and the conversation is done) and everyone of them feels like a hard stop in the story. Our main character, Ari, has no true hardship in his life that makes him as disagreeable as he is, he feels like an angsty preteen at times and I wanted his parents to sit him down and tell him to grow up. There are wordless pages that show action (mostly baking scenes) but it is hard to follow the flow of them as they are not linear and instead done on angles, making it hard to know which panel is next.
Overall, I'd say, read the graphic novel because there are parts of it that are fun, but take it with a grain of salt.

Oh, and don't even get me started on Ari's friend Cameron and how terrible he is!