YA New York

When you think of Lauren Myracle, you think cute and sweet, right? She is, after all, the author of TTFN, TTYL and L8R, G8R.

I mean, to me at least, this is what Lauren is like:

She’s cute, and she’s sweet, and she likes Hello Kitty. But it turns out she can write a bone-chillingly spooky novel, too, and that is precisely what she has done with her fourth sixth YA novel, Bliss.

Our heroine is actually named Bliss, because her hippie parents (who raised her on a freakin’ commune) thought it would be a nice name. And to make matters worse, she’s just been transplanted to Atlanta, to live with her grandmother. Let’s just say that the good girls of Atlanta society are nothing like those Bliss grew up around.

The story is set in the 70s, and while Bliss works her way through the school year all she hears about the horrible Manson Family murders. Cleverly juxtaposed with the fact that at home, she is allowed to watch nothing more hair-raising than The Andy Griffith Show.

Okay, if you were born after, I don’t know, 1990, you might want to do a bit of background research. Because if you haven’t seen re-runs of Andy Griffith, you won’t understand how totally awesome the show is, and what Bliss likes about it. So go find something on the internets, or a re-run on the teevee. And also, you need to know about these murders, just a little bit. You could read up on Wikipedia. You’ll find that Lauren condensed things a bit, but it was all for a good cause.

Anyway, back to the topic. I wouldn’t be telling you to do research if this book wasn’t absolutely worth reading. Seriously awesome. Lauren may look cute — and she is — but she’s also got a fantastic imagination for the incredibly creepy.

OH. Also, Lauren has been doing a lead-up to release day on her blog. It’s fun reading, her blog, so go there if you’ve got to wait a few days to start on Bliss. (Ahem. According to Amazon.com, the book hasn’t yet been released. On the other hand, according to Amazon.com, the book has been released. Can someone explain this to me???)

UPDATE: Lauren wrote on her blog that … all the copies of her book were printed in the wrong color. Umm, considering that she seems to have been taken over by some evil creature over the last few weeks, maybe this isn’t true, and maybe the book will come out next week instead of this week. But alas, you’ll just have to keep checking back at her site for more info, I suppose.

Or I could get on the horn first thing in the morning and put on my investigative reporter’s hat. “Hi. Is it true that Bliss isn’t out because the color of the blood on the copies of the bound book were wrong? They were what??? Who has purple blood? That’s totally bizarre. So the book is coming out when? In 2012???? No. No way.” Hmm. Maybe I’ll just wait for an update from the lovely Lauren herself …

(Pre-order?) Bliss from Amazon.com.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.