Dahlia in Bloom Novel 1 – Review

Dahlia in Bloom feels less like a complete novel and more as if the author had a collection of really interesting ideas and decided to just throw them into book form without really bothering to fully develop any of them. Rather than a slow isekai tale of a woman coming into her own after two lives lived for other people, we get hints of that with a heavy dose of mediocre food descriptions, which is obviously a bit disappointing. It’s a light novel that tries too hard to be all things and ultimately ends up being none of them.

The story follows Dahlia Rosetti, a young woman who is on the edge of getting married to her longtime fiancé, Tobias. Dahlia’s father was the premier maker of magical tools, the equivalent of modern appliances that are crafted with and run by magic. Since Dahlia worked with household appliances in her previous life as a businesswoman in Japan, she’s got plenty of excellent ideas that help grow her and her father’s businesses, and she’s set to continue that collaboration with Tobias once they’re married. She’s not in love with him, really; their late fathers wanted them both to marry (or so they believe), and Dahlia’s fine with just going with it. Or she thought she was, until Tobias, on the very day of their wedding, breaks it off with her.

Tobias is a very different kind of tool, and the way that’s conveyed is probably the best-written piece of the book. Dahlia never noticed what he was like, and the picture Amagishi paints is of a young woman so used to just doing as she’s told across two lifetimes that she simply goes with anything asked of her. Tobias thinks it’s unladylike to drink more than one glass of wine? Okay, she’ll limit herself. Tobias thinks her naturally red hair is gaudy? Okay, she’ll dye it brown. Tobias doesn’t want her to wear bright colors? Okay, she’ll dress like she’s wearing a potato sack. The list goes on, and the picture painted is a damning one of both Tobias and Dahlia’s expectations of herself. Since she previously died of overwork, the implication is that Dahlia was just used to being treated this way – like an object or a tool herself rather than a person. And when she finally sees Tobias’ true colors, she determines that she’s going to just be herself and do what she wants from now on.

If the book had leaned more into that, it could have been a very rewarding read. And it does touch on it, but what we mostly get is that once Tobias is out of the picture, people in town are very eager to bend over backwards to do things for Dahlia without her having to do much of anything at all. Even when she expresses discomfort at Gabriella, the vice-president of the guild Dahlia works with, buying her fancy, expensive outfits, she’s ignored; ditto for when Volf, the presumptive new romantic interest, buys her things. While it would be a bit much to expect Dahlia to just suddenly be able to stand up for herself in all things, here she comes across like she’s no more assertive than she was with Tobias – it’s just that now she’s receiving rather than giving. It stymies her growth as a character to the point where she feels more like an author-insert wish fulfillment than a protagonist.

The other major misstep that the novel makes is in its focus. While the odd chapter from Tobias’ point of view, or Volf’s, provide a little more meat to the plot, mostly this feels like a lot of padding with the occasional plot point. Large swathes of text are devoted to explaining precisely what Dahlia and Volf eat and drink each time they go out, which in a devoted foodie novel would be fine, but here just feels like a major loss of focus on the part of the author. The section where Dahlia introduces Volf to fondue (which is unknown in this world) is one thing, because that’s more relevant to who Dahlia is and what she hopes to do in her new life; all the others, where each mug of ale, glass of wine, and bite of cheese is described feel very much excessive and irrelevant. This also happens with descriptions of Dahlia entering a shop or people’s reactions to the first sight of her; very little of it is working with the stated plotline of the novel and instead functions to add more pages that simply aren’t needed.

Elements of this are good – neither Volf nor Dahlia has any interest in romance, both for solid reasons, and so their burgeoning relationship is cast much more in the light of friendship; if a romance plot does develop, it’ll be the friends-to-lovers trope where we’ve been privy to the entire relationship, which is nice, if only because it’s not the old childhood friends variant. The illustrations are also a cut above what we typically see in a light novel, more manga-style in how they portray the events happening and overall very attractive, particularly when Volf and Dahlia are involved. The translation is also particularly readable, doing a good job of avoiding the repetitious feeling that light novels can sometimes have.

Dahlia in Bloom is, it must be said, a bit of a disappointment. It has the potential to be the story of a young woman finally learning to be herself and live her life the way she wants to, but it wastes its pages playing around with fruitless descriptions. It may change this in its second volume, since it establishes its baseline in this one, but even as an iyashikei story, this leaves a bit to be desired.