Kirkus Reviews describes Bloomland as "Hugely important, hauntingly brutal" and states, "Englehardt has just announced himself as one of America’s most talented emerging writers." Kristen Millares Young of The Washington Post writes, "“Bloomland” juxtaposes the proximate with the predator, intermingling their perspectives until the flickering becomes a bloody tapestry of our beleaguered nation." In The Literary Review, Jeff Bursey states, "writing a relatively non-polemical debut novel about a student who shoots others at his campus would be difficult to do, but John Englehardt, in Bloomland, has achieved this feat." Publishers Weekly describes the novel as "potent" and states, "Englehardt’s debut poses timely, difficult questions."
