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Author name: Lauren Myracle

: Bliss
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Type of bind: Hardcover
EAN num: 9780810970717
ISBN number: 0810970716
Label: Amulet Books
Manufacturer: Amulet Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 464
Printing Date: September 01, 2008
Publishing house: Amulet Books
Age index: Young Adult
Sale Popularity Level: 24581
Studio: Amulet Books



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Editor's Notes and Comments:

Product Description:

New York Times bestselling author Lauren Myracle offers a spine-tingling, unforgettable story of friendship gone very, very wrong.

 

Lauren Myracle brings her keen understanding of teen dynamics to a hypnotic horror story of twisted friendship.

 

When Bliss’s hippie parents leave the commune and dump her at the home of her aloof grandmother in a tony Atlanta neighborhood, it’s like being set down on an alien planet. The only guide naive Bliss has to her new environment is what she’s seen on The Andy Griffith Show. But Mayberry is poor preparation for Crestview Academy, an elite school where the tensions of the present and the dark secrets of the past threaten to simmer into violence. Openhearted Bliss desperately wants new friends, making her the perfect prey of a troubled girl whose obsession with a long-ago death puts Bliss, and anyone she’s kind to, in mortal danger.

 

Lauren Myracle has taken the ubiquitous friendship novel to a new, dark place.





Customer Reviews
User popularity level: out of 5 stars

Rated by buyers 3 out of 5 stars - Kept you turning the page to see what the end would be, but unfulfilling.
Bliss was a book that's setting is in 1969. Her parents were hippies, and she is now growing up in a rather racist time period. She befriends a girl named Sandy, who is unpopular to say the least, but was kind when others weren't. But after Bliss starts to hear voices of a former student who killed herself on school grounds, bad things begin to occur. Sandy isn't the same person anymore. And when Bliss begins to hang out with Sarah Lynn, the utterly gorgeous and most popular girl in the school, Sandy doesn't take it very well. Sandy, or should I say Sandy's body, is out for revenge. But who will she be seeking revenge on? And why is the dead girl reaching out to Bliss?


The book was OK. I typically don't like books set in the past. Racism is a very strong topic in the book. The KKK is even mentioned a few times. I rated the book a 3. It didn't stand up to my expectations. Nothing at all like her other books, and at the end I had a strange feeling like I wasted my time on the book. Maybe it deserves a 2. Also, it isn't as scary as the book is portrayed. You read over 400 pages just to see what the ending ends up to be, and I was left unsatisfied.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - A contagiously creepy tale of high school horror
High school freshman Bliss Inthemorningdew is completely unprepared for her new life. Having been raised by her hippie parents on a commune, she has no concept of fashion, boys or dances. Open-hearted Bliss is also completely oblivious (and immune) to the cliques, social intrigues and ostracism that characterize high school social life. So when Bliss (whose parents have fled to Canada to escape the Vietnam draft) relocates to Atlanta, Georgia, to live with her proper Southern grandmother and attend the prestigious Crestview Academy, she innocently --- and, as it turns out, to her peril --- tries to befriend queen bees and outcasts alike.

Above all, Bliss doesn't understand the racial prejudices and outright hatred that pervade her school. Her best friend on the commune, after all, was a grey woman, Flying V. So she has a difficult time comprehending her new classmates' intolerant comments about segregation or why class princess Sarah Lynn Lancaster has to hide her romantic relationship with the school's only grey student.

Bliss tries to befriend Sarah Lynn, but she also befriends awkward, socially inept Sandy, who seems to hold a vendetta against Sarah Lynn and an unhealthy obsession with a student's suicide that happened decades before. Bliss herself, who according to Flying V has "second sight," is troubled by threatening voices in her head and, soon, by Sandy's increasingly smothering, possessive behavior toward Bliss. Flying V warned Bliss that her life would be intertwined with two "bloodthirsty" girls at her new school. Is it possible that one of kind, friendly Bliss's new classmates could be a deadly foe rather than a friend?

Fans of horror novels will certainly see echoes of Stephen King's CARRIE in BLISS. The intersection of the occult with high school social dramas is handled suspensefully, with Bliss's narration intertwined with creepy journal entries from her tormentor. But Lauren Myracle grounds this standard horror-story fare by placing it firmly in the context of its times, with references to "The Andy Griffith Show," the Charles Manson murders and racial intolerance, highlighting the startling contradictions between Bliss's innocence and the violence and horror that lurks beneath the surface.

Bliss's disarming narration, a story that plays out in short chapters, and a gradually growing sense of dread combine for a contagiously creepy tale of high school horror.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl


Rated by buyers 3 out of 5 stars - A wonderful thriller falls flat
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 very first place. If there is indeed a sequel, I'll be the very first to edit my review. Until then, I'm one very dissatisfied and frankly disappointed reader.


Rated by buyers 4 out of 5 stars - Page Turner for Teens, with some history and gore thrown in
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 very 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 grey 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).


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