Customer Reviews

Bliss

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

First of all I'd like to say that I did enjoy Bliss. It had good momentum through out, good action, some fairly interesting creepy moments. However, and this is just my own preference here, I hated the ending. There was no resolution. And here's a spoiler so don't read further if you haven't read the book.....that disgusting Sandy basically just takes over the school. The student population turns a blind eye to her past behavior and she suddenly reigns supreme. I know it's just fiction but the ending just felt weak. Further, no one seems to be mentioning that this book seems to tell the story behind the "bitches" in the earlier novel Rhymes with Witches. And after all the build up in Bliss about the "power" now held by Sandy all that power seems to be used for is for certain girls to be "beautiful and popular" which let's face it, certain girls seem to manage without any help from dark magic. What ever happened to Lawrenece? What about Bliss and Mitchell? The ending just left way too many loose threads hanging for my taste.

It's amazing to me when an author can't end a book. I was looking forward to some sort of closure to tie this haphazard mess into a story, well, I'm still looking. She made some attempts, but there were too many loose ends, too many questions. The author did a great job of interweaving current events that were taking place in with the story line and at first I was interested in where the plot was going. Unfortunately, the plot wasn't well thought of, instead it seemed she was more interested in writing a book about Charles Manson and The Family and not of this world she had created. The characters she sketched at first were interesting and drew you into the story but then the book dragged on. 'Scary' scenes felt fake and the real malice that she was trying to create seemed nothing more than a fabrication. I wanted to like the book because it did seem different, but I just couldn't. I felt the book was a huge disappointment and let down, especially after reading reviews that said how wonderful it was. I'm an avid reader and with many books to compare, this one will never be recommended by me.

Summary: Bliss was left with her grandmother, when her hippie parents ran off to Canada. She is now the new girl at Crestview Academy. This will be Bliss' first school. She also has to change her lifestyle from living on a commune to the living in the city.
Crestview Academy was a convent before it was a school. School legend is that a girl named Liliana, jumped from the third store of the building. She sense that something is wrong with the school. She can hear the Liliana's plead to come set her free, but she can tell the voice is one of evil. Bliss just wants to make friends; not hear a dead Liliana's voice. She meets a girl, Sandy that is obsessed with the past. Especially that of the suicide at Hamilton hall. Sandy also tries to justify the Manson Murders. Bliss also becomes friends with Sarah Lynn, a popular girl that Sandy hates for some reason. As one of her friends goes deeper into the hole of evil, Bliss wants to save her, but she might lose someone else.

My Review: This book is amazing. The layout is awesome. Each chapter is started by a quote with references to "The Andy Griffith Show," the Charles Manson murders and racial intolerance. Sometimes, there is a diary entry from another character that goes by S.L.L. The diary entries have blood splattered on them. I also really liked Bliss, she is a really sweet girl. She is quite innocent, which is perfect for a horror novel. Lauren Myracle of telling a story in the 1969's. The plot was amazing. I think this is Myracle's best work, and highly recommend it.

I will be brief - this was a fascinating book, there was definitely a lot of suspense as well as a few plot twists I wasn't expecting. I was a great read - except for its conclusion. The way the book ends make me feel as if there must be a sequel in the works, either that or there has got to be a chapter missing. It ended very strangely, cruelly, abruptly, and without resolving any conflicts or giving anything positive to `the good guys', leaving me confused and wondering if there was something big I had missed. Maybe there's some deep philosophical theme I was too obtuse to notice. Long story short, this is a wonderful novel dampened by a frayed, painful, barely-there ending that left me wishing Bliss had never come to town in the first place. If there is indeed a sequel, I'll be the first to edit my review. Until then, I'm one very dissatisfied and frankly disappointed reader.

The setting of this book is Atlanta, Georgia 1969. Bliss Inthemorningdew (her parents are hippies) is living with her grandmother while her parents are in Canada to protest the Nixon administration. She has never been enrolled in school, and has been living the hippie lifestyle with her parents in communes and even on a university campus. As Bliss enters a prep school for the first time, she discovers many new things. The school used to be run by nuns, and a girl threw herself from the third story of one of the school's buildings. She finds out quickly that she can hear the girl's bloody voice, as Bliss is very atune to the spiritual world. She also makes new friends, and learns that Sara Lynn is the most popular girl at school. There is also only one black student enrolled at the school, in order to avoid forced segregation, but most students, teachers, and parents are still pretty set against this inclusion and against African Americans as a whole. All of the typical high school clique stuff still applies as it does today, and Bliss befriends one of the school's token freaks, Sandy. Soon Sandy is showing her obsession for the girl who killed herself so many years before, and she tries to use Bliss as an offering to channel the dead girl's spirit. Full of suspense and the supernatural, sure to appeal to teens who love this kind of stuff, even though there are many historical references from the sixties (like segregation, Nixon era, war, the Charles Manson murders, and popular TV shows like Andy Griffith).

This book has a lot going on - it's a complex, well-crafted young adult novel. Not my usual read, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Bliss is 14 and recently abandoned with her proper Southern grandmother as her hippie parents escape to Canada. Having lived on a commune most of her life, Bliss is in for a radical awakening when she enters a high-brow, conservative, private school in the midst of integration. When she starts to hear a voice from the other side, things get really interesting. Long ago, the school was a convent school and a young initiate died. Her spirit reaches out to Bliss, which is really inconvenient, because she is trying to figure out this whole life of friends, boys, deodorant, etc.

Add to the mix of hippie girl meets Southern propriety, integration, ghosts, the Charles Manson trial and you may be scared off - don't be. It all works together.
Lisa Ard, Author of Fright Flight, Dream Seekers Book One

It's 1969 and Bliss is going to a regular school for the first time. The freshman has been living on a commune, something completely exotic to her new Crestview friends' imaginings. As Bliss settles into a "normal" teen life, she begins to notice something strange at Crestview, an ominous feeling and a wicked voice that hangs around one building in particular. Bliss soon learns that Crestview is home to its very own ghost, a ghost that has the power to influence some of the impressionable teens on campus.

This is teen horror in every way. There are some truly uncomfortable and hair raising moments in the story. To top it off, Myracle sets the tale around the Manson murders that occurred that same year, throwing in actual quotes from the trial to set the tone.

BLISS is a quick and creepy tale.

A quick read, this supernatural thriller never really caught my complete interest. Written by Lauren Myracle, author of several other YA novels, this story seemed leaving something to be desired in character development as well as plot. I enjoyed the read but left feeling...Huh?...what happened to? etc.

Young Bliss, fresh off the commune, goes to live with her grandmother in Atlanta, when her parents decide to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. Feeling totally out of her element, she tries to strike up friendships among the students at exclusive Crestview Academy. Snubbed by those assigned to show her around, she finds Sandy,who after helping a fellow student who fell down the stairs, seems like the kind of person she'd want for a friend.

Set in the late 1960's using both the Charles Manson killing and subsequent trial AND the Andy Griffith Show (Mayberry?) as touchstones throughout was interesting, not to mention the mysterious diary entries that help keep you guessing.

Mysterious voices, darkened hallways, relics of a prior gruesome accident and other similar plot twists lead the reader to a climax that I did find surprising, but the journey felt incomplete. The many parts all fit together quite neatly but left me with many unanswered questions.

Not bad overall, but I'd definitely recommend it to younger teens with an interest in horror.

Bliss is different from the rest of the students at her new school. For one, they didn't grow up on a commune with hippie parents. They didn't have a last name of 'in the Morning Dew'. They didn't hear the voice of a girl who killed herself years ago in one of the old halls on the school grounds.

While Bliss may be different, she quickly learns that she likes the kind of life her fellow students lead, the kind of life she never had the opportunity to have. She wears make-up for the first time. She attends classes with other kids her age. She makes friends. She gets a boyfriend. She attends a school dance.

Everything would be perfect if it weren't for Sandy, the misfit of the school who Bliss befriends because she knows what it's like to not fit in. Unfortunately, Bliss quickly finds out that Sandy isn't completely sane. Sandy wants people to worship her, to understand her. She'd go all the way to the point of bringing alive someone from the past -- Lillian, the girl who jumped out of a third-story window all those years ago -- to achieve her goal.

And Bliss finds herself in the middle of this bloodlust.

Myracle writes an interesting story that links to the American events of 1969-70. Her writing is amazing; the reader feels happy and terrified right along with the protagonist. This story is sure to capture readers, although the ending does not have quite the touch of finality that most stories do.

Reviewed by: Steph

I have to admit to being new to Lauren Myracle's work, despite her being a powerhouse of YA literature. Bliss was an impulse buy, and this is where I get to continue my confessions by owning up to judging a book by its cover. The cover of Bliss evokes memories of Carrie--a favorite book (and film) of mine. Between the creepy cover and the blurb on the back, I knew this was a book for me (way to go marketing team!).

As soon as I began to read, it was obvious this would be a book I loved. For one, I am drawn to books that have a multi-genre feel in terms of layout and narrative technique. The chapters are broken up by quotes from a few different sources, primarily transcripts of the Tate-LaBianca murder trials and snippets from The Andy Griffith Show. This was brilliant. Myracle actually manages to make Mayberry take on an ominous tone, I'm not sure if anyone has ever done this before; but I know I'll never look at reruns of this program the same way again. The quotations served the book well and were carefully chosen--they add a mixture of ambiance and foreshadowing. Equally cool were the journal entries by S. L. L. that helped to break up and/or introduce the chapters, which added intrigue and suspense to the novel.

When I sat down to write this review, I began by thinking, "what is this book about?" And that's where I falter. It is, on the surface a teen horror novel; but it is also so much more. It is a story of racisim and classicism. It is a story about how cruel teenage girls can be to one another. It is a story of being an outsider and feeling pressure to conform while at the same time trying to maintain individuality. It is a story about how misguided and naive, albeit good intentioned, some adults can be. It is suspense and it is tragedy. The book is all these things, and that's what really made me love it.

The characters are real and because they are real, they are flawed and they are conflicted. It is the characters that drive the plot of the story. Readers will recognize faces from their own years in high school and will most likely recognize themselves. Looking at the world through Bliss's eyes for most of the narration, adult readers will be transported back to the gauntlet known as high school. Because Bliss is an outsider, having spent most of her life as a transient and living on a commune, her point of view allows for those of us who have been out of high school for a while to reacquaint ourselves with the rules of high school not found in any Freshman orientation program or school handbook.
Bliss's conclusion is neither satisfying nor happy; neither are most of life's conclusions. While some readers may be put off by this, I thought it was brilliant. Characters and events of this novel will be burned into my brain for many years to come and I am sure this is a book I will read again.
Now, excuse me while I hop over to pick up a copy of Shine. Lauren Myracle, you most definitely have a new fan in me.

See all my reviews at <mymercurialmusings.com>