Name: Megan's review of Flowerheart by Catherine Bakewell
Item: Flowerheart
Rating: 5
Author: Megan

Catherine Bakewell

Clara’s magic has always been wild. But it’s never been dangerous. Then a simple touch causes poisonous flowers to bloom in her father’s chest. . . 

The only way to heal him is to cast an extremely difficult spell that requires perfect control. And the only person willing to help is her former best friend, Xavier, who’s grown from a sweet, shy child into a mysterious and distant young man. . . 

Xavier names a terrible price in return, knowing Clara will give anything to save her father. As she struggles to reconcile the new Xavier with the boy she once loved, she discovers their bargain is only one of the heavy secrets he’s hiding. And as she hunts for the truth, she instead finds the root of a terrible darkness that’s taken hold in the queendom—a darkness only Clara’s magic is powerful enough to stop.

Flowerheart

nuélle

Megan

4.5 Stars — This was such a fun read. It’s the perfect cottage core comfy read. There are *so* many LGBTQ+ characters. The way the author talks about them without making their queerness a big deal is so refreshing. 

Clara and Xavier are incredibly adorable and so much fun to follow. Xavier isn’t your typical male love interest. He’s fragile, talks about his feelings, and truly cares about Clara. 

This is a soft, quick read with minimal conflict, but it’s a lot of fun all the same. I’m typically a fan of fast-paced books with lots of actions, but I enjoyed reading this all the same. Flowerheart is such a nice break, a little vacation in a novel. I would read so much more about these characters.

kait

i have more questions than answers honestly. i don't think the book needed to be this long and i wish that it would have gotten to the point quicker. i liked the characters well enough and i thought the setting was good but it just wasn't anything special. i feel like maybe the author is setting up for a second book that would give this world more depth but everything just felt a little too underdeveloped. i wanted more and i wanted what we got to have been better.

it was a really nice read overall. Very atmospheric and all vibes. 

The romance was so cute. The alchemy reminded me of the one from Sorcery of Thorns (but very different setting and story of course) 

Amira BEN

it was a really nice read overall. Very atmospheric and all vibes. 

The romance was so cute. The alchemy reminded me of the one from Sorcery of Thorns (but very different setting and story of course) 

would recommend just for the vibes !

this book was a comfy/cozy/easy read ✨ i just feel like i needed more when it came to what her mom’s been up to/her coven/the distribution of euphoria you know?? i think this is meant as a stand-alone though so those will have to remain secrets i guess!!

samantha lias

Flowerheart has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

I keep saying this but YA has a bit of a tone issue. Authors want to skew towards older teens, so they include things like gore and "heavier themes" (quotation marks since I believe kids can deal with talking about assault, etc., it is a matter of how we have the conversation) but at the same time their stories may not necessarily work with a main character who is not, dare I say, naïve. But writing naïveté for the older teens requires some skill and moderation.

"Flowerheart" does not quite manage to strike the balance, making you wonder the entire time what it was aiming for. On one side you have this horrible drug and you have flowers sprawling from Clara's dad and on the other hand you get a love plotline not dissimilar to a middle school shoujo manga and a character with - what feels like - a somewhat infantile outlook. Those are not bad elements per se but there is a certain disconnect between them within the novel itself which makes it appear inconsistent.

At the end of the day, it was not bad; I liked when it could get a good hold of the whimsical nature that the cover prompts. And I think with some more guidance, it could have been excellent.

But also, please leave Margaret Rogerson alone; the girls still have some road to go before they can get a prose as polished and well put together.

I keep saying this but YA has a bit of a tone issue. Authors want to skew towards older teens, so they include things like gore and "heavier themes" (quotation marks since I believe kids can deal with talking about assault, etc., it is a matter of how we have the conversation) but at the same time their stories may not necessarily work with a main character who is not, dare I say, naïve. But writing naïveté for the older teens requires some skill and moderation.

"Flowerheart" does not quite manage to strike the balance, making you wonder the entire time what it was aiming for. On one side you have this horrible drug and you have flowers sprawling from Clara's dad and on the other hand you get a love plotline not dissimilar to a middle school shoujo manga and a character with - what feels like - a somewhat infantile outlook. Those are not bad elements per se but there is a certain disconnect between them within the novel itself which makes it appear inconsistent.

At the end of the day, it was not bad; I liked when it could get a good hold of the whimsical nature that the cover prompts. And I think with some more guidance, it could have been excellent.

But also, please leave Margaret Rogerson alone; the girls still have some road to go before they can get a prose as polished and well put together.

Narrated by Morag Sims. // Clara’s magic has always been wild. But it’s never been dangerous. Then a simple touch causes poisonous flowers to bloom in her father’s chest. . . 

The only way to heal him is to cast an extremely difficult spell that requires perfect control. And the only person willing to help is her former best friend, Xavier, who’s grown from a sweet, shy child into a mysterious and distant young man. . . 

Xavier names a terrible price in return, knowing Clara will give anything to save her father. As she struggles to reconcile the new Xavier with the boy she once loved, she discovers their bargain is only one of the heavy secrets he’s hiding. And as she hunts for the truth, she instead finds the root of a terrible darkness that’s taken hold in the queendom—a darkness only Clara’s magic is powerful enough to stop.

If you like the flower field scene from the Howl’s Moving Castle movie (and just that) then this book is in your wheelhouse. The Ghibli influence is clearly there, but the comparison feels isolated to that cottagecore aesthetic. 

Not quite low-stakes enough to be a “cozy” fantasy, this book deals with intense conflicts like: the potential death of a parent. Incurable, catatonic states bought on by drugs. People with depression unable to find help or relief in a world literally filled with magic potions.

And yet, solutions at the conclusion are provided with ease and little consequence for our lead character.

It felt a bit like Bakewell was trying to avoid cliché. For example: A story about a girl with an absent mother being ultimately about the mother-daughter relationship. Or: the morally gray ‘wizarding government’ actually being evil.

This book is neither of those things, but the story felt like it WANTED to be about that. A cliché can be really enjoyable if it’s done well. But Flowerheart sidestepped those expectations while still providing the groundwork for those twists; which left me confused and disappointed.

Clara has a dream at the beginning of the book, and that dream remains stagnant at the conclusion.

The writing is lovely and emotional, and there is a lot of potential here in the aesthetic, lead characters, and magic system - but ultimately this read like a draft in need of structural editing.

Lastly, it is a given that the author equates the way Clara’s magic speaks cruelly to her == metaphor for anxiety and mental health. So then, it strikes me as a deep shame that Clara expresses that she feels “empty” or “not whole” when her magic is taken away at the midway point. And then the message that her anxiety is something to be mastered and leashed like a beast, instead of something she can work with and improve over time with reframed thought.

Caroline Clutterbuck Kapulkin

If you like the flower field scene from the Howl’s Moving Castle movie (and just that) then this book is in your wheelhouse. The Ghibli influence is clearly there, but the comparison feels isolated to that cottagecore aesthetic. 

Not quite low-stakes enough to be a “cozy” fantasy, this book deals with intense conflicts like: the potential death of a parent. Incurable, catatonic states bought on by drugs. People with depression unable to find help or relief in a world literally filled with magic potions.

And yet, solutions at the conclusion are provided with ease and little consequence for our lead character.

It felt a bit like Bakewell was trying to avoid cliché. For example: A story about a girl with an absent mother being ultimately about the mother-daughter relationship. Or: the morally gray ‘wizarding government’ actually being evil.

This book is neither of those things, but the story felt like it WANTED to be about that. A cliché can be really enjoyable if it’s done well. But Flowerheart sidestepped those expectations while still providing the groundwork for those twists; which left me confused and disappointed.

Clara has a dream at the beginning of the book, and that dream remains stagnant at the conclusion.

The writing is lovely and emotional, and there is a lot of potential here in the aesthetic, lead characters, and magic system - but ultimately this read like a draft in need of structural editing.

Lastly, it is a given that the author equates the way Clara’s magic speaks cruelly to her == metaphor for anxiety and mental health. So then, it strikes me as a deep shame that Clara expresses that she feels “empty” or “not whole” when her magic is taken away at the midway point. And then the message that her anxiety is something to be mastered and leashed like a beast, instead of something she can work with and improve over time with reframed thought.

“What if I lose my sparkle?” 

My sparkle: anxiety and depression

Beautifully sweet and wholesome, with exactly the cottagecore Howl’s Moving Castle vibes I was hoping for. The friends-to-more-than-friends element between Clara and Xavier never took over the story, which I appreciated. And though the stakes may have been “low”, they still very much mattered to the main cast. A few mysteries and threads were left open… so I’m desperately craving a sequel!!

Content warning for intrusive thoughts (cleverly anthropomorphized)

Liz Griffin

Beautifully sweet and wholesome, with exactly the cottagecore Howl’s Moving Castle vibes I was hoping for. The friends-to-more-than-friends element between Clara and Xavier never took over the story, which I appreciated. And though the stakes may have been “low”, they still very much mattered to the main cast. A few mysteries and threads were left open… so I’m desperately craving a sequel!!

Content warning for intrusive thoughts (cleverly anthropomorphized)

Such a heartwarming read. I really enjoyed this, it has the same vibe as “Howl’s Moving Castle.” The characters are well-rounded, and the story starts off quick. Bakewell crafts a vibrant world that really pulls you in. The only complaint I have is that sometimes the prose was a little redundant/repetitive, but the rest of the story makes up for that. 

Floofyflower

This book was like a breath of fresh air, all the wonder and excitement of magic contained in this book. I picked it up because of the gorgeous artwork and I cannot be happier that I did. It gave the perfect witchy, cottage core vibes that I hoped for!

Kira Del Caro

Although the book had a very strong start, it kind of fumbled towards the end. Clara’s magic was so interesting but the messaging that went along with it was confusing. At about the 200 page mark, the book feels like it’s done but than it continues for another 100 pages. It’s hard to put my thoughts about it’s issues without spoilers though so here’s where they start. I could be misinterpreting this but if Clara’s magic is anxiety/negative self talk, it felt very weird for Clara to mention that she felt like not herself without it. Empty is the way she phrased it when her magic was taken. I didn’t love that messaging. Especially since there was not enough positive feelings about the magic to warrant such an extreme feeling. I also felt like Xavier should have been an only child with his father. I understand that his sister was his motivation for creating euphoria but it doesn’t seem like he even tested that on her. It would make more sense for his father to be suffering from depression, Xavier tries to create the cure, attempts to give it to his father and his father turns him into the council. Also very tiny but it felt like a mistake that Clara doesn’t immediately know why her magic is gone. She was the one who made the deal in the first place. Overall, this had potential but it probably needed a couple more hard edits to work fully.

Emma Miller

A cute little YA with some dark cottage-core magic. Definitely feels like it could be in the same universe as Howl's Moving Cadtle if you really like that book/movie. I hope we get to see more of these characters and this becomes a series, otherwise it feels very incomplete. I hate to say that nothing really happened in this book but yeah nothing really happened especially ially if this is a stand alone... 

Cassidy Webb

When it comes to fantasy stand alones, I find they're either hit or miss, and this one sadly fell into the latter category. It didn't feel fully developed. I never got a sense of who the characters were, the world itself, or even how the magic worked. There's all this talk about curses and dark magic, yet nothing about the story felt tense or suspenseful. The stakes are very low throughout this to the point where it was almost boring at times. It's also marketed as a romance, but there's no chemistry between Clara and Xavier. The talk surrounding mental health was interesting but could've been explored more. Overall, it was whimsical, but I wanted more substance.

nuélle &
Flowerheart by Catherine Bakewell

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