Book Review: Bumble Bees & White Balloons

A year ago, my wife published her first novel, Bumble Bees & White Balloons (BBWB). A few years before that, she wrote the first draft of this book…in TWO AND A HALF DAYS. Now, the title being a callout to different references in the book, we only know from the cover that it’s “A Novel About Navigating Grief and Growth.” A few pages in, since Safrianna is trauma-informed and worked as a trauma therapist, a paragraph containing content warnings gives us an idea of what concepts will come up in this slice-of-life story. I’ll list them at the bottom of this post because some of the topics are spoilers to the plot.

Each chapter is titled with a different word representing the chapter’s theme, and I love that because we don’t see that much with novels these days. We also start each chapter with the name of whose perspective the chapter will be from. Third-person multiple point of view is my favorite way to read a book because it gives me more information about what each character is thinking. Safrianna does an incredible job showing how characters’ thoughts, beliefs, and emotions impact their minds, bodies, and behaviors throughout this story.

This leads me to one of my favorite aspects of Safrianna’s writing style: she doesn’t hold back. This bitch! How dare you pull me through a rollercoaster of emotions I struggle to feel over several weeks into a few hours of reading this book? I of course can titrate the emotion tincture, but I get so caught up in what will happen next. 

Another way she doesn’t hold back is by talking about real-world issues. This book took place in Maryland between 2019 and 2020 including when everyone was in lockdown. Throughout the book, she reminds us of the horrors that were going on in the world. With several characters being of the global majority as well as queer, midway through the book, Black Lives Matter becomes a topic that the characters explore, which I really appreciated since I got to read the potential thoughts from a person of global majority (Jordan) and a person of global minority (Abbi) like me. These real-world moments make the book feel like historical fiction, even if this history was only 5 years ago.

Another thing I appreciate about BBWB is that the characters have to navigate hard conversations. The way she pulls in the characters’ backstories to showcase how generational trauma affects their ability to approach conflict is just… chef’s kiss. 

Oh and have I mentioned it’s queer? Holy hell it’s queer. The main characters are a woman and nonbinary person who are hopeless romantics. They show some of their romance through The Lesbian Book, which is a shared journal to express thoughts, feelings, poetry, etc. While this story isn’t about me and Safrianna, she pulled in references from the beginning of our relationship, which included The Lesbian Book. On 9/6/2020, I wrote in our book about her first draft of BBWB:

“Well holy fuck, Safrianna, I just plowed through your beautiful & poignant slice-of-life book that you power-wrote in two days and I am in utter disbelief over the sheer completeness that this novel is. Conflict, romance, relatable characters, realistic, modern fiction, connecting themes, and symbolism galore…this will be a story I want bound, edited, and published as soon as possible so I can read and reread the story in a hard copy. It will be a book forever on my nightstand, and it will fall apart from me going back & underlining and highlighting sections I love. 

I am shooketh. I want to hold you and sob and get my shit together so I can make love to you without snotting all over you. But yes, I hope this book can provide you the confidence you need to step into your dream as an author. I will be your number-one fan! I love you. I love you. I love you. 

<3 Kenna”

So when you read portions of Jordan and Abbi’s Lesbian Book throughout BBWB, you can see the inspiration behind it! 

Even though this book has a lot I resonate with from having aspects of my relationship with Safrianna inspire themes in the story, I hope that whoever reads this book can find themes that resonate with them, whether that be navigating parent relationships, exploring stages of grief, shifting expectations, or even reminding ourselves where we were at during COVID lockdown of 2020 as Jordan and Abbi experience their own hardships from that time in this novel. 

If you’d like a copy of this book, here’s our affiliate link!  https://amzn.to/3OyBBQS

I wrote an orchestral soundtrack piece that’s inspired by the first few chapters of the book, so feel free to check that out too!

https://soundcloud.com/larkenna/contemplation-bbwb-soundtrack 

PS: Here are the themes/content warning pieces I mentioned earlier!

COVID-19

Racism

Misgendering

Misogyny

Miscarriage

Body Image Issues

Disordered Eating