Bloom by Elizabeth Scott

Lauren is a lucky girl, mostly because of her perfect boyfriend Dave. He’s a star football and baseball player and incredibly gorgeous, not to mention extremely smart, loyal, and nice. Her grades are fine and she’s got a great friend Katie, but she doesn’t realize that she’s missing out on anything until Evan Kirkland shows up. Lauren is almost an entirely different person with Evan, because she doesn’t pretend anything with him. But even as a passionate relationship with Evan develops, Lauren can’t bring herself to break up with her perfect boyfriend Dave. She’s torn between her two personalities: the one that accepts her life with Dave as perfect even though it’s boring or the more wild and honest side that Evan brings out.

Bloom was a very romantic and sexy story. However although I loved the story, I didn’t always love Lauren. She was just so frustrating sometimes, especially when she couldn’t make up her mind between which guy she wanted. I have to forgive her though, because she’s really only human (even if she is fictional). The setting of high school was not particularly unique, but I felt that the story worked well in it. Also, I liked how the story stayed pretty focused on Lauren’s problems instead of meandering onto Katie’s or Dave’s problems. However, by touching on these other character’s problems, I was left with many unanswered problems regarding them and I wished there were more of these characters in the story. Nevertheless, I felt that Bloom was a very honest and definitely romantic story that I’d reread if I had time.

I have to say though that I preferred Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott to her first novel, Bloom, because it was just more unique, but I still did enjoy reading Bloom. I recommend this novel for fans of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, Wake by Lisa McMann, and When It Happens by Susane Colasanti.

Rating: 4.5

Review copy from personal collection