Bloom

Rain plays an important role in Bloom’s plot, delivering invasive plants designed by an extraterrestrial species and sent to colonize Earth. Rain also has a symbolic function in the story. Rain commonly symbolizes rebirth and new beginnings, as it does for Anaya, Petra, and Seth. Petra points out, “None of this started until that big rain and the plants started growing. That’s when our bodies began changing” (207). Their physical transformations, triggered by the cryptogenic plants that came with the rain, represent the outward manifestation of this rebirth. When they discover they share DNA with the cryptogenic species and were conceived by extraterrestrials, the teens must develop a new sense of their identities and their place in the world. Anaya, Petra, and Seth’s rebirth separates them from their families and peers and the lives they knew. At the same time, it connects them to new ingroups, speaking to Alienation From One Group as Belonging to Another. At the story’s beginning, Seth is friendless and the two girls are bitterly estranged. The rain leads to a new beginning, and a new opportunity, for all three to embrace Friendship and Loyalty as a Source of Strength.