Beach Reading: BLISS

Lauren Myracle is a hot YA author, and with good reason. She has the magical combo nailed: Great/hot topics, strong characters, and solid writing (to me that means that it moves fast with just enough, not too much, description). She she's on a roll.

BLISS is her latest. It's a YA book, but very appealing to adults. For one reason, it takes place in the early seventies, which is before my time, but I understand many of her references because they were part of my childhood. I'm uncertain how today's teens feel about being transported back in time when cellphones, text messages and iTunes didn't exist, when these components are essential to their very being.

As you can see from this cover, which I love, BLISS is a bloody book without being pure horror....I would call it Supernatural Suspense. (I made that up.)

Bliss is the child of hippie parents and most recently lived in a commune. She is uprooted when her parents flee to Canada to avoid Nixon’s policies during the Vietnam War, and she's left with her wealthy grandmother in recently-integrated Atlanta. (Note for teens: The notion that there was a time when peeople WEREN'T integrated is an important thing to understand.)

Quickly, Bliss needs to understand bras, hygiene, make-up, the KKK and the social structure of her prep school where the students are obsessed with the Manson trial and where Bliss is haunted by an evil voice.

The story is interspersed with diary entries, which allows the reader know more than the first-person narrator. There are also snippets of quotes from news and TV which I find confusing.

This is not G-rated. I recommend it for the PG/PG-13 teems and adults due to the horror which, at times, is gruesome.