Taking Root by Brenda Bellinger

Taking Root is an okay book. The tomato plant was nice symbolism. I did like reading about Delaney and the people she met who helped her. It never fleshed out it's potential though, and this is why:

To start, there was no plot. It all just ... happened, one scene after another, and there didn't seem to be anything the scenes worked towards. That is fine, but a book like that needs developed and developing characters to pull that off. Taking Root didn't, the characters were more caricatures. Delaney was the same headstrong and semi-independent teenager she was at the start, without a real plan to make a living or a life for herself. All development in her life was because someone else kept digging, or someone else kept helping. The young people she meets get hardly any room in the book. Some are introduced, only to silently never come up anymore. Others hang around to give her a lift somewhere. The adults ... well, there is Murray the landlord, who remains the same kindhearted helpful person. Liz is a crappy mom who gets beaten and does drugs, and that's all there is to her. And Luella ...

Yes, let's talk about Luella. I simply don't understand why. I mean, yes, on a know-level, there probably would be Delaney's need to have someone to trust and care, a kind of grandmother-figure. Further than that, she and Luella, it all seems to be so artificial. They get thrown together, and they should be friends because Luella's nosy busybody ass sets something in motion that might be seen as some kind of ... I can hardly call it plot development, but there it is. Almost the only action there is, comes from Luella using her professional thing and trying to compute to find stuff out.

Also, Luella is the reason I usually stay away from the 'Christian'-section on Negalley. My goodness, is she annoyingly zealous on a sugary sweet level. She made me think that it all would end up being about her converting Delaney or something. The book could very well have done without Luella's faith being so on the nose.

If I look at technicalities, another thing Taking Root could have done without is all the repetition. Naming a character every couple of sentences is way too much, for instance. The writing was good at points, but stilted at many others.

I received a free copy through Netgalley. My opinions are my own.