Lotus Bloom and the Afro Revolution

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of bullying, racism, and anti-gay bias.

Lotus is the primary protagonist of the novel and the first-person narrator. She is a seventh grade student starting her school year at a new school—Atlantis School of the Arts. She plays the violin exceptionally well, earning a spot in the newly built arts school without even needing to audition. She is immediately put into advanced orchestra, where she earns the respect of Maestro, the orchestra teacher, and is made concertmaster. However, this earns her the attention of Adolpho, a white student who was previously concertmaster, and leads to him bullying her by throwing paper airplanes into her hair and making fun of her appearance.

Central to Lotus’s character is her appearance and her afro. She takes pride each morning in making her afro look perfect, making it stand up as tall and strong as she can. She also chooses retro clothing, often thrift shopping to find clothes from the ’70s and ’80s. These two features—her hair and her clothing—are central to her identity; however, they also serve as a source of bullying from her fellow students. While Adolpho openly criticizes her afro and compares her to Buckwheat, other people she considers her friends, like Mercedes, laugh at Adolpho’s videos and insist that Lotus is overreacting.