Reading Response on "Bliss" by Lauren Myracle

The book Bliss, by Lauren Myracle, tells one girls experience of moving from a commune with her hippie parents to a prestigious southern town with her wealthy grandmother.  Bliss has never gone to school, she has never had friends her own age and she also never exposed to anything bad or frightening.  Her previous experiences left Bliss naïve and when it came time for her to enter into 9th grade at Crestview Academy, her only goal was to make friends and be normal.  Soon after school started, Bliss had made plenty of friends, including a girl named Sandy who sits alone at lunch and is basically shunned by the rest of the school.  Throughout this novel Bliss develops a lot as a character because of the influence of others.

The character that helped Bliss most get out of her naïvety was Sandy.  Sandy helped Bliss realize that you really can’t judge a book from its cover, and you can’t judge a person from just one experience.  For example, the whole reason Bliss ever wanted to be friends with Sandy was because she thought that Sandy had a good heart and meant well.  She thought that Sandy was horribly mistreated by the other girls in her grade and thought that she had done nothing wrong to anyone.  Bliss thought that Sandy looked nice and befriended her.  Bliss was totally wrong about this.  Sandy exploited Bliss and became friends with her only so she could use Bliss as her human sacrifice, in her “blood magic”.  Sandy’s only goal was to become powerful and had no interest in Bliss.  Because of Sandy, Bliss learned how to make good friends, because of her terrible friendship experience with Sandy.

Another character that helped Bliss become less naïve is Mitchell.  Mitchell is Bliss’s crush at the beginning of the book, but by the end they are dating.  My first thought about Mitchell was that he was kind of a pointless character, but I realized that he actually played a major role in both the development of the book and the development of Bliss.  One example is that he was the one who convinced Bliss to continue to be friends with Sandy after she began to creep Bliss out a little bit.  If Bliss had never stayed friends with Sandy, then Sandy wouldn’t have been able to blackmail her into being her human sacrifice for “blood magic” and her goals to be almighty.  Even though that staying friends with Sandy wasn’t the best thing, Mitchell just wanted Bliss to be happy.  Additionally, Mitchell helped Bliss realize what it was like to have a real friend, someone who doesn’t trap you inside of them and force you to do anything.  Mitchell was really helpful towards Bliss through everything that happened with Sandy and without him, she may not have been able to get through the beginning of the year without his love and support.

In conclusion, Bliss was very naïve and expected everyone to be kind.  Mitchell, Sandy, and other characters helped Bliss realize that not everyone is going to be anti-war. Not everyone is going to be against murders.  And also, not everyone is who you think they are.  Bliss learned more from 6 months at high school than she did the whole rest of her life, not because of her schoolwork, but because of other people helping her figure out what the world is.