Pumpkin Heads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks

Graphic Novel

Juvenile Fiction

Blurb

Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends.

Every autumn, all through high school, they’ve worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world. (Not many people know that the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world is in Omaha, Nebraska, but it definitely is.) They say good-bye every Halloween, and they’re reunited every September 1.
But this Halloween is different? Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch. Their last shift together. Their last good-bye.

Josiah’s ready to spend the whole night feeling melancholy about it. Deja isn’t ready to let him. She’s got a plan: What if instead of moping they went out with a bang? They could see all the sights! Taste all the snacks! And Josiah could finally talk to that cute girl he’s been mooning over for three years . . .

Review

“It’s about being the flipper not the pinball.”

Pumpkin Heads, or rather Deja’s life philosophy was exactly what I needed to pick me up today. I absolutely adored this story about friendship, loyalty, honesty, and embracing life.

This book literally has everything going for it. It’s a delightful, charming, funny, and uplifting story featuring diverse characters and filled with body-positivity. Which is not to say the book is either boring, preachy, or bland. In their quest to get Josiah to introduce himself to the girl he’s been admiring from a distance for three years, Deja and he learn about friendship while Deja shows Josiah that life needs to be lived rather than endured and that sometimes rules are meant to be broken. And while it may seem as if Deja has it all worked out and knows exactly where she’s at, it turns out that even she still has a lesson to learn about appreciating what you have rather than speculating about what might be.

Deja is, without a doubt, one of the best female characters I’ve read in recent times. She embraces life and shares her happiness and kindness with anybody willing to receive it. She’s also a fount of wisdom, as the quote I started this review with shows, just as this one does:

People all sort of look the same until I talk to them.

That’s when they start to get interesting. That’s when they start to…shimmer.

As I said, this story is very body positive. Deja isn’t your usual skinny (or white) heroine. Here we have a well-formed girl with brown skin who loves food and isn’t afraid to indulge. What’s more, the story makes it clear that not only is she very popular, the people she works with are also attracted to her. She’s the one with a string of past flings, not Josiah.

I have to admit that I have nothing with Halloween and that a lot of the food and activities mentioned in this story were new to me. And that didn’t matter at all. I laughed, smiled, and grinned my way through this book, delighted to spend time with Deja and Joshua as they cemented their friendship and discovered that sometimes what you think you’re looking for is something you already have.

I’m not much of a graphic novel reader either, because I usually prefer to paint my own pictures in my head rather than rely on somebody else’s interpretation of a character, but the artwork in Pumpkin Heads was inspired. Even my own, very vivid, imagination couldn’t have improved on the pictures of either the characters or the pumpkin patch.

If you’re looking for something to lift your mood and leave you smiling, I highly recommend Pumpkin Heads.