It's the mid-nineties, and in the small, shitty coastal town of Vincent, four girls - each hailing from single-mother, multi-sibling families, form a band. Friends since they were children, they consider themselves 'forgettable girls' - poor, not particularly clever, distracted at school, disengaged and disillusioned from the other kids, and desperate to escape the fates of their mothers, who seem locked into a life of minimum-wage jobs and domestic drudgery. Winning the Battle of the Bands is their ticket out - they might not have talent, but they can play three chords and scream until their vocal folds burst out of their throats - and nobody wants it more than them.
But when lead singer Lily Lucid quits, and accuses their idolized music teacher of sexual assault, the three remaining girls are left with nothing. They'll do anything to keep their dream alive, even if it means sacrificing school, Lily and their mothers. But how far out of control can they spin before there's no turning back? (Synopsis courtesy of Goodreads.)
In Bloom took me back to my high school years; that time in my life when friendship was the lifeblood of everything, and adults were absolutely clueless. Despite the backdrop of this story, which takes place in small-town nowhere, and where I grew up (a thriving capital Pacific Northwest city) being vastly different, I could identify with this group of girls, because it felt very reminiscent of the types of scenarios I went through, too.
I had my own girl group. We weren’t vying to win any prize and we weren’t budding musicians, but the majority of us had come from minimum-wage backgrounds and knew what it was like to struggle. I thought it was really interesting that for the majority of the book, the author makes the girls' voices one collective viewpoint, because it is so like that at the age of 14. There is no division from one to the other. Their goal is to win the Battle of the Bands and escape their lives and achieve something better. Something more than what they see when they look at their mothers with their deadbeat boyfriends.
When their friend Lily quits the band and quits their collective friendship group, life begins to spiral. No adult can understand what they feel. They fight against bullying, against being ignored. Their music teacher was the only one who really “got it,” and when he’s accused of sexual assault, by Lily no less, there is no security in their future. A coveted friend is gone. An adult support system gone. When they stop showing up for school, for their parents, for their own lives, I could relate because I remember falling into similar patterns, all in an effort to escape the seriousness of my world.
There is a turning point when the girls begin to see things for what they really are, and when that happens, no longer is there one collective viewpoint. We begin to see each character in the girl group for who they really are, with their own individual thoughts and feelings. They begin to delineate and in essence, grow up a little, even if it’s before their time and due to some scary circumstances that might have even made them mature faster than they should. The writing style was engaging and kept me focused, throwing in 90s songs that really brought me back to those angsty teen years that I never thought would end, but ended too abruptly. I'm a huge Nirvana fan, so I was thrilled to see so much focus--even the title of this book--on an alternative band that meant so much to me when I was a kid. And if you know the lyrics to the song "In Bloom," you know it was more than fitting. This was a five-star coming-of-age story and worth the read.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the book in exchange for an honest review.
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