Title: Pumpkinheads
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Illustrator: Faith Erin Hicks
Genre: YA Contemporary
Format: Graphic Novel
Length: 209 pages
Publisher: First Second
Publish Date: August 27, 2019

Black, Queer

So this is basically going to be a quick and painless review because this was pretty short and kind of cute and I don’t really have much to say about it honestly.

I thought the story was pretty cute, and I liked the adventure that Deja and Josiah took on their last day of working at the Pumpkin Patch. I felt like the ending was totally set up and figured that was going to happen, although I kind of feel like it was also a cop out. I’m kind of irritated with Josiah because it felt like he really took his friendship with Deja for granted until the very end, although maybe that’s just how his personality is. I felt bad for Deja because she literally spent her last night at the patch trying to win the day for Josiah and I felt like he was just trying to get out of it.

The saving grace of this for me was the fact that it was a graphic novel, so the artwork and the colors and the visuals were basically what I loved about this book. Sure, some of the dialogue was kind of cool too, could be pretty snarky or whatever, but the artwork was beautiful and if someone else had written the story, who knows. It may have been more of a beautiful dialogue for me. I’d love to see more work from Hicks though, seriously. I felt like Deja was super cute!

Oh, and I’m also irritated at this little kid that basically made fun of Deja’s size, that jerkface. Rude, AF. But I’m glad that Deja never let others make her feel unworthy because of her body, and that it never got in the way of her being friendly, happy, and just unapologetically herself. That’s why I love her.