As previously established, I don’t read a lot of horror, and I’m pretty picky about the horror I read. Right after finishing Our Share of Night, a novel which was a pretty good example of what I don’t like in the genre, I ended up reading They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran, a great example of what I do like. Would I normally read horror back-to-back outside of scary season? No, but the release date for They Bloom at Night kept getting pushed back, so darn right I was gonna read it as soon as my library hold was finally available.
They Bloom at Night is a YA horror novel. I previously enjoyed the author’s debut novel, She is a Haunting, so I was really excited to see they had another novel coming out, and the cover looked creepy. By the way, if you’re a horror wuss and you think YA horror might be a gentler way to experience the genre, think again. I’ve found that these books are just as scary as their adult counterparts, simply with younger protagonists. This particular book deals with themes of body horror and climate fiction, as well as complicated family bonds and racism. And while mycological horror has been big these past few years, They Bloom at Night is wondering if you’ve ever thought about how weird algae is.
After a large storm hit the Louisiana coast, an algal bloom formed. Then it never went away. The sea life started mutating. Between the land-based devastation and concerns about what’s happening in the water, most anyone with money has left. The families that remain are mostly trying to just get by, though one enterprising man seems to be on his way to becoming some sort of petty warlord now that his gator zoo isn’t a popular tourist attraction.
Our main character Nhung/Noon and her mother have been barely hanging in there since Nhung’s father and brother were killed in the storm. They’re fishing and looking for the monsters that the mother is convinced are the reincarnated forms of their dead loved ones, even though Nhung thinks they should get out while the getting is good. Now there’s another storm bearing down on the coast and people are disappearing. Will they flee, or try to solve the mystery?
A quick note: Nhung is a Vietnamese-American teen. Her name is difficult for English-speakers to say, so she goes by Noon outside of her family, usually. Also, she’s trying to figure out her gender, and sometimes uses they/them pronouns when thinking about themself. I am going to follow the author’s lead here and use both names and both pronoun sets throughout the review.
Let me tell you, if you think YA is just full of high school drama and love triangles, you should read this book. There’s no high school drama because Noon’s school was flooded and stinks of algae now, and most of the teachers have left town. Besides, Noon stopped going to school after a traumatic event made her feel like she needed to retreat from public view.
Nhung’s family home was also trashed in the storm, so now they live on the fishing boat with their mother. Their home, their livelihood, and their father’s most prized possession, the boat is also the hook that forces them to agree to look for the missing people, as Nhung’s father took out unwise loans in order to keep the boat.
Ultimately, Noon has to team up with Covey, the badass but bookish daughter of the harbormaster/gator zookeeper/boat loanshark to look for the missing people. The author manages to deploy some mostly believable plot contrivances to have the teens (as well as a couple others who they team up with later) being the main ones doing the searching, basically a combination of the adults having the wrong priorities or getting sidelined by injuries.
This is a story of disaster and disappearance and scary monsters, but it’s also a story of queer longing and the ways our families of origin hurt us and let us down, and about ultimately accepting and loving who we are.
Also there’s a cat.
I loved this book. The body horror parts were hard for me to read, because I’m very squeamish about that sort of thing, but Nhung is such a compelling character and Trang Thanh Tran is such an engaging author. The side characters are well-developed too, and we end up with this quartet of queer teens trying to find the truth and protecting each other, and I just want to hug all of them and make them some hot cocoa and bundle them off to someplace safe where they can grow and thrive. With their cat.
They Bloom at Night is a good illustration of why I think adults absolutely should read YA. Even if, like me, you primarily read books written for an adult audience, it’s good to refresh your empathy for teens, to remember what it was like to be struggling to find your place in the world and to feel seen by your family and peers. While Nhung’s particular emotional journey is influenced by their Vietnamese-American heritage and gender identity, there are themes of grief and shame that feel universal, even if the sources of these emotions might be very different for the reader than they are for Noon.
If you can handle a book that can be very gross, pretty scary, and deeply sad, definitely give this book a read. Just be aware of…
CWs and TWs: In addition to body horror and gender-related dysphoria and death of family members already mentioned in the review, this book contains sexism, racism, references to domestic violence and sexual assault (and ongoing trauma from the SA), homophobia, animals in peril, and scary zombie-like monsters.
Source and Format: I borrowed the ebook from Sno-Isle Libraries, after having it on hold since July 2024! I really thought I’d read this around Halloween last year.
Reading Challenge Prompts
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): Keeping Secrets. Nhung is keeping so many secrets. The assault she experienced. Their feelings about gender. The strange beliefs their mother has about what really happened to their deceased family members. And she picks up more secrets in the course of the book. It’s a lot for a young person to carry.
Reading Challenge Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 7 of 25, no bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 10 of 25, 1 bingo.
Book Riot: 10 of 25.
Physical TBR: 5 of 12.
Brick & Mortar: 23 of 25, 8 bingos.
World of Whimm: 11 of 24, no bingos.