This book is a heartfelt story about a girl who is in love and confused. I selected this book because of the review on the book. AHS/MV

Reviewed by Jocelyn Pearce for TeensReadToo.com

Lauren's life seems almost perfect at first. She's got a perfect boyfriend, Dave. She's not struggling with school. She's got an awesome best friend, Katie. She doesn't really fight with her father. Her life is good. Safe, but good.

She's not happy, though. Lauren doesn't know why, but her life doesn't seem like all it's cracked up to be. Neither does her relationship with Dave, who may be just a little bit too perfect. She finds a chance to make herself happy when Evan Kirkland comes to town, but is she ready to let go and take the plunge? Is Lauren ready to leave her safe, boring life behind for the passion and happiness that she sees with Evan? She's not sure. She has, after all, struggled not to be like her mother, who let herself run away to pursue what she wanted even though it meant leaving her husband and young daughter behind. But does being who she, Lauren, wants to be have to mean sacrificing her happiness just to make the choice everyone else seems to think is right?

BLOOM is a beautiful, powerful love story, a wonderful coming-of-age story, and most of all just an amazing novel told in Lauren's fresh, funny, and distinctive voice. Lauren is a strong, likeable character, and she is not the only three-dimensional character in the story--they are all fantastic. Fantastic is also a good word to describe BLOOM itself. Elizabeth Scott is a wonderful writer, and this brilliant novel makes me very excited to see what this author will write next! ( )

Lauren considers herself nothing special, but inexplicably, the most gorgeous and popular guy in school has chosen her for a girlfriend. Dave is perfect--thoughtful, kind, gorgeous, and smart--and he wants a future with Lauren. Lauren pretends to be the perfect gorl that Dave deserves, but finds herself drawn more and more to Evan. She knows she will have to choose between Dave and Evan, but who should she choose?

A great realistic novel about being true to yourself. ( )

Lauren is dating Dave. Let's review that shall we Lauren (a nobody) is dating Dave (the somebody, the football star the Mr. Popular). Her best friend is Katie who is dating Dave's best friend Marcus. Lauren doesn't have a mom she left when Lauren was young. Her dad has been trying to fill that gap with girlfriend after girlfriend, but he just can't seem to make it work. One of these relationships was with a woman named Mary and included her son Evan. Like all the others Mary left soon after moving in. Now many moons later Lauren gets sat next to none other than Evan who has just come back from wherever it is he's been all these years. Seeing him Lauren starts to feel for him things she doesn't understand and most certainly never felt when she was with Dave. Even though everyone says that she and Dave are "perfect" together, Lauren just feels like a big liar, a big fake who is just going through the motions with kind, sensitive caring, Dave. Now for the first time Lauren has to decide what she wants and she has to make it so.

Okay, so I did enjoy this book, it was light and funny and at the same time touched upon some basic teen issues. I felt like Lauren was a genuine person, a real teen with a real teen dilemma. However, I didn't feel like the plot went anywhere for the first half of the book. Each chapter seemed to just be the same thing just different words and a few extra details. Nothing really happened. Though this did hamper my reading a bit, it did not deter me because it was still light enough to be enjoyable. I definitely recommend this to girls for the summer. It's a fast, delectable read that I think most girls will be ale to relate to. So yeah read it, you'll love it.

P.S. how could you not love a guy who loves animals (a female cat named Joe puh-lease, I'm melting) ( )

Lauren's seventeen and popular by association since she's dating the most popular boy in school (who's secretly celibate). Before she started dating Dave, she was one of the kids no one really noticed, not popular but not a loser. Just...there. And she still can't figure out what the gorgeous Dave sees in her.

Then Evan comes along. Evan is the son of one of her absentee father's previous girlfriends, and he and Lauren haven't seen each other in about ten years. Lauren finds herself drawn to Evan, and to the way she feels when she's with him. She's comfortable with him, opens up and tells him things about herself that she doesn't share with Dave or her stressed-out best friend.

The thing is, Lauren is scared to feel, scared to allow herself and her emotions to get remotely out of control because she equates emotions with her mother, who abandoned Lauren and her dad when Lauren was a little girl. So at seventeen, she's figured out how to bottle things up, to lock her emotions up and throw away the proverbial key. In that way, Dave is safe. She feels...well, she doesn't really feel around him. And there's comfort in that. Like I said, he's safe.

But Evan....oh, when she's around Evan all she does is feel. And it scares the crap out of her, but at the same time she can't stay away from him.

So she keeps lying to Dave, making up excuses to stay after school or why she can't do this or that. She keeps telling him everything's okay even though it isn't. She hides the truth from her best friend. She doesn't quite know what to do or how to handle anything that she's feeling. Eventually, she and Evan end up kissing, and even fooling around at one point (they probably would've had sex if his mom hadn't walked in on them). And that's where Lauren knows she's crossed a line she shouldn't have. But still, she's torn--do the safe thing, or risk getting hurt and letting go.

Those are tough decisions for adults to make, much less seventeen-year-olds. ( )