Book Review: "Bloom" by Delilah S. Dawson

We in Britain are experiencing a heatwave and I was at the library lately. I borrowed quite a few books and a lot of them seem to be very cool (but also very dark) novels. I was really looking for some Joyce Carol Oates and yet, they only had one or two that I had not yet read, the others I had not read were not available. Sometimes, that can be a pretty good thing and here, it has been. I managed to borrow a book called Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson. It was absolutely awesome and to be fair, I have to tell you all about it.

The novella starts with Rosemary (known by 'Ro' in the book since she hates her name) and honestly, I hate saying characters are relatable but there is a whole new thing going on here. Ro loves words and novels, she has degrees in literature and she has this innocent self-deprication which makes her sweet but not saccharine. She is in a farmer's market one day when she is drawn into the shop of a woman who makes her own soaps and cupcakes and more. Her name is Ash.

Ash is an odd woman; she represents what the young people would call 'cottage-core'. She is all about living on a farm (which she kind of does), she is all about making everything herself from all her farm-sourced food to her hand-soaps and shower curtains that are in her bathroom. There are so many things to this woman. On top of this, it alarms the reader that Ash doesn't own a smart-phone, nor does she have wi-fi in her home, she does not have a television and she does not do social media. The only equipment of this kind that she owns is an iPad that takes card payments in her shop. At the time whilst I was reading this, I thought Ash was simply someone who enjoyed the calmer lifestyle and perhaps even admired Ash's ability to be so picture perfect of a time I think we all miss (especially if the iPhone was lobbed into existence during our teen years and suddenly everything changed forever). Oh was I wrong.

Anyways, Ro and Ash start a rocky relationship after Ro eats a cupcake made by Ash in her shop and has some sort of religious experience. There is this point in the book where she keeps going back to the shop to see Ash because she becomes obsessed with the idea of her. As this happens, she becomes more involved in Ash's lifestyle. For example: she ends up going to Ash's house and experiencing all the oddities of her home and therefore, her character. As the book progresses, there are some unpleasant things about Ash that looking in, we the reader see as red flags. But because Ro is infatuated with her, she doesn't see the same thing we see. What you've basically got by the middle of the book is a critical reader sitting there thinking 'oh hell, this isn't a great situation, is it?'

As we dive deeper into the story, we start to see more of these quirks that Ash has that start to trouble not only the reader, but Ro as well. In Ash's house, there's a door that isn't allowed to be opened. When Ro turns up with a gift for Ash when Ash is working at her home, Ash proceeds to become enraged at Ro for doing this - an emotion we haven't seen her display before. As we see this emerge more and more, it becomes quite clear that Ash is not the person we initially saw her as. This is a brilliant mix of dynamics which turns the book from being a power-weighing relationship which both parties are vague about at first, to being a book about a possibly consuming infatuation in which the word 'consuming' means more than one thing.

All in all, I would say that if I was asked - this book has to be one of the best books I have read this year. I'm so glad I picked it up. As the book starts turning, it is clear that this is not a romantic story of finding your sexuality and discovering new things. Instead, it is a book of nightmares. It is quite literally the mother of all nightmares. Here's a tip: I was eating my lunch whilst reading this book. Please do not make that mistake.