Review: Fun, light, romantic read.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 10, 2014
I thoroughly enjoyed In Bloom by Katie Delahanty. The story wasn’t perfect and left me with questions, but I totally fell in love with Berkeley and Olivia. Plus, the LA setting was quite nostalgic. Although, Olivia’s experience was quite different from mine.Olivia was definitely my favorite. She was a bit love sick over Berkeley, letting her relationship with I’m affect her work and life with friends at times. However, she always ended up being true to herself. She didn’t let LA change her, and she genuinely did what she thought was best for herself in the end. I loved that and was quite worried she’d change at first.I also loved Berkeley. He was very sweet and down to earth. He was also obviously very smitten with Olivia. He was far from perfect though and made mistakes along the way. Ultimately, he was able to fight for what he wanted regardless of the consequences. Love that!I only had two major issues with this story. Firstly, their relationship was quite a whirlwind. I’m still trying to comprehend how long they are actually together by the end of the story. It didn’t feel very long, which leads into my next point. Since their relationship happened so quickly, I didn’t get the sense that their lives would actually work together. Much of their time together was spent with them being together alone. There was no real immersion of each other into their lives, including work and friends. So basically, the story was a happy ending, but not what I’d consider a happily ever after. Hopefully, if there’s a sequel, the loose ends will be tied.Overall, I’d give In Bloom by Katie Delahanty 4 stars. I loved the characters and enjoyed the story, but it still needs more. It was a great debut novel, in my opinion.