Review: Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks | The Perfect Low-Stress Fall Treat

Warnings: Very mild themes of senior-year transition anxiety, fear of growing apart after graduation, ditching work shifts, and mild romantic rejection/pining.

Themes: Seasonal camaraderie and friendship, senior-year nostalgia and coming of age, opposites-attract, best-friends-to-lovers, and queer/bisexual visibility.

October first came around — I was in need of pumpkins, the state fair and a wholesome love that could set the mood for the entire month. Cue Rainbow Rowell’s perfectly paced, one-sitting story, Pumpkinheads, a two-hundred-page graphic novel that sparks an instant enthusiasm for autumn and leaves you questioning where the nearest pumpkin patch and food crawl is. Also, where is my seasonal carnival job where I get to fall in love with my best friend while eating Frito pie? 

Before the two main characters, Josiah and Deja, even get going, Faith Erin Hicks art is so vibrant and alive it makes me want to rip it out, frame it, and add it right along with the autumnal decorations. Imagine each chapter opening on a gallery wall above my traditional ceramic pumpkins and ghosts — the cutest additions. Paired with Sarah Stern’s coloring, every panel looks perfectly washed against cozy fairy-lights; I could practically smell the kettle corn rising off the page in between sips of my apple cider. 

When I was distracted by the art, I was busy romanticizing Josiah — the earnest “Employee of the Month” stuck in a daydream about fellow employee “Fudge Girl” for the last three autumns — and Deja, the bold, bi-sexual other-half of the Succotash Hut. Bound by an easy-going camaraderie that has only existed within the perimeters of the patch, the two are quietly mourning the fact that this is their final shift before graduation scatters them to college. Instead of staying put in the Succotash Hut to finish out their seasonal duties, they decide to seize the night together, abandoning their final shift posts to indulge in corn mazes, caramel apples, and side-quests with the rest of the patch crew. 

Beneath the doughnuts and comedy, Pumpkinheads is a pure, low-stress, comfort read that doesn’t require heavy worldbuilding or manufactured melodrama. Rowell’s signature banter and light-hearted dialogue paces breathlessly while keeping the world lived-in and natural. It bottles the magic of walking through a carnival at dusk with your best friend, hands sticky with caramel syrup, wishing the night could stretch out just a little longer.

Without revealing too much about this perfectly equaled comedy-and-culinary graphic novel: read this if you love best-friends-to-lovers tropes and atmospheres drenched in October evenings.

Pumpkinheads is definitely the perfect fall treat that captures senior-year nostalgia and appreciating what (or who) is already standing next to you.

P.S. Where is the sequel where we get to see Josiah and Deja FaceTime at separate colleges? Where do they reunite during Winter Break and both pick up shifts as Elves at the mall? What other seasonal mischef could the duo get up to? Author

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