Laura Harrington's Blog, page 4
September 27, 2011
“…a beautifully wrought tale of a young girl growing up in small-town America during our most recent years of craziness and warfare — and all that this does to one family.”
Alice Bliss is a typical teenager. She is 13, lives with her parents and sometimes annoying younger sister, has a best friend with whom she shares everything, and is noticing boys for the first time. However, there is little in her life that seems normal these days. When her dad gets called up to active duty in the armed forces, Alice takes to wearing his shirt every day and trying to be strong for her devastated mom.
“…a beautifully wrought tale of a young girl growing up in small-town America during our most recent years of craziness and warfare — and all that this does to one family.”
Laura Harrington’s first novel is a beautifully wrought tale of a young girl growing up in small-town America during our most recent years of craziness and warfare — and all that this does to one family. Alice grows up throughout the book, learning to drive, falling in love for the first time, and finding success on the track team. But the one constant amidst her adventures is the need to take care of her mom while her dad is away, a seminal relationship that buoys her.
It is rare for a novel to focus so fully on the relationship between a father and a daughter. In most contemporary books with girl protagonists, it would seem that the rapport they have with each other is not always a positive one. However, Alice’s story is built around the way she is affected by both of her parents, and the difference between those two relationships helps to explain the remarkable strengths and age-appropriate weaknesses of this multi-dimensional young woman.
War stories are widespread these days; after all, the U.S. has been at war for the last decade. With the upcoming 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, there are sure to be many more. ALICE BLISS is a very affecting one, an OUR TOWN-like examination, through the life of one typical girl, of the effects that wartime has on everyone.
Although not necessarily a young adult novel, it would be a great, compelling read for teenagers. A story this interesting and yet this sweet is hard to come by, so I think it would be a wonderful conversation starter for kids all over the country who are going through what Alice is dealing with. Engaging and sweet, ALICE BLISS is a great book.
Reviewed by Jana Siciliano on August 4, 2011
Read more @: http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/alice-bliss
September 21, 2011
A beautiful, poignant, and engaging story that you don't want to miss
Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington
Reviewed by Amy @ The House of Seven Tails
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
My Thoughts: I read a few reviews of Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington and thought it sounded like an interesting book with a young adult main character. I came across a post on Dawn's blog, She is Too Fond of Books that grabbed my attention. Laura Harrington, the author of Alice Bliss wanted to send her book on an around-the-world adventure by means of BookCrossing.com. I loved the idea and signed up! When I received a copy of Alice Bliss with a BookCrossing bookplate attached, I registered the book at BookCrossing and received an ID number. Now that I've read and reviewed Alice Bliss, I will "release" my copy later this week or early next week in a public place such as a doctor's waiting room or Starbuck's. My hope is that another reader will pick up Alice Bliss, register where they found it on BookCrossing and, after they read it, will release it themselves. I'm looking forward to being able to 'watch' the journey the book takes around-the-world!
I admit that my initial interest in Alice Bliss was Laura Harrington's idea to share the book around-the-world. I thought the book sounded good but I honestly didn't pay a lot of attention to the story. I certainly wasn't expecting the exceptional reading experience I had with Alice Bliss. The coming-of-age storyline, universal, terrific themes and wonderfully human, flawed characters made for a great book. Ms. Harrington has written a beautiful, poignant and engaging story that you don't want to miss.
Alice Bliss, at 15-years old, is the oldest of two girls in the Bliss family, a normal American family living in a small town in upstate New York. Ellie is Alice's 8-year old sister, quirky, adorable and lovable. Angie and Matt are her mom and dad. Angie and Matt are very much in love, although very different people along the mode of "opposites attract". Alice is a good kid but she's in that awkward, uncomfortable and confusing stage between little girl and young woman when her hormones and emotions are in constant flux, wreaking havoc on her poor body which feels to Alice like it belongs to a stranger.
Alice adores her father and is very similar to him. Spending time with Matt doing any of the many things he likes to do, including gardening, tossing a baseball around or working in his workshop is where Alice can usually be found. She has a cantankerous relationship with her mother. They don't seem to understand each other at all and have many issues to work out. The Bliss family is rounded out by a nutty, fun-loving, large Uncle Eddie, Angie's brother whom Alice adores, and Angie's mother, Penelope Pearl Bird or Gram, who owns The Bird Sisters coffee shop in town. The one other character I cannot forget to mention is Alice's best friend and possibly more, Henry. Henry Grover lives down the street from Alice, has been a part of her life since they were small children and is an intelligent, quirky and delightful boy.
Matt enlisted in the army reserves much to his wife's displeasure and inability to understand. When his unit is called up suddenly as part of a fast-track "high quality, hurry up, move 'em out training", no member of the Bliss family is prepared or happy about it, least of all Alice. How she copes with her father's absence while grappling with the confusing changes and conundrums of growing up, and struggling to make sense of it, provides for a powerful, touching and sometimes funny storyline. It was difficult not being able to whisper kind words in Alice's ear to let her know she's not alone or to sit beside her and share her pain (she's not the hugging type at this stage!) while reading about her days.
Alice Bliss is written from the third-person point of view but it feels very much like Alice's story. There are no chapters, instead sections in the book are delineated by dates, as if we are reading a journal. This made the story feel even more like Alice's because diaries and journals are often kept by girls. Additionally, much of the book is about Alice and her daily life during the 6 – 9 months we're privileged to spend with Alice and the Bliss family. I really liked that Ms. Harrington chose to use dates rather than chapters to mark the progress of the story because it felt more personal and intimate as if we were spending each day with Alice and her family while they coped with Matt's absence. I enjoyed being able to keep track of Alice's daily life, ee her progress and anticipate and know when important events were coming up in her life.
Whether or not you feel this is primarily Alice's story, there's no doubt she's the star character. Ms. Harrington's book is filled with well-developed, very human characters who help to make this book a terrific reading experience but Alice stands out. She's a remarkable, terrific girl and/or young woman who leaps off the page and into your heart. Intelligent, funny, sweet and thoughtful, she can also be stubborn, irascible, and, sometimes, selfish. Alice's character bounces between the little girl she's been and the young, mature woman she's on her way to becoming, demonstrating, clearly, the puzzling, self-conscious and difficult time Alice is having right now and the varied, extreme feelings all the changes provoke in her.
Ms. Harrington does an amazing job of showing us, clearly, that Alice is in that difficult stage all adolescent girls go through when, not only are their bodies changing in disturbing ways, but their hormones, emotions and thoughts are as well. Like so many young women around her age, Alice is childish and immature one minute and wise beyond her years the next. Ms. Harrington portrays this dichotomy in Alice best when she's struggling to cope with her father's absence and her feelings towards Henry. At every turn, I loved Alice and sharing this journey with her. She's by far one of my favorite characters.
Alice being the primary character in Alice Bliss is partly why I felt this was her story. The relationship Alice has with her mother, Angie, also made me feel this way. Almost every time they speak or encounter one another, they clash and misunderstand each other. I was slightly confused while reading scenes between Angie and Alice because, very often, Alice felt more mature than Angie. Angie was easily irritated by Alice and often didn't seem to try to get along with her behaving morelike a friend than a mother. Angie even acted envious of Alice's relationship with her father. It was difficult to like Angie at all in the first third of this book.
As the story progressed and I began to see that this was mostly Alice's story, I understood the scenes between Alice and Angie better, especially when looked at from Alice's point of view . It was clear to me that most of what happened in this book was primarily Alice view of how things occurred. Few teenage girls portray their mothers in positive light so when viewed from Alice's perspective, it made sense that Angie seemed selfish, immature and unkind much of the time. In a few scenes in which Angie's alone, we get some insight into her character. These scenes clarifiy that Angie isn't as selfish, unkind and thoughtless as she sometimes appears to be. We also saw what a tough time she's having coping with Matt's absence and Alice growing up. Angie is portrayed as a very flawed human being and not always the best mother but I don't think we were given a totally well-rounded picture of Angie. If there's any 'problem' I had with Alice Bliss it's that I would have liked to know Angie better and to know more about her relationship with Alice. What I did see of Angie with Alice made me feel enormous sympathy for mothers of teenage girls!
Laura Harrington has written a beautiful, stunning and absorbing book about a young girl maturing into a young woman while coping with the inevitable problems that life throws at us. At the same time, she's dealing with her relationships with family and friends that change as we change. Ms. Harrington has given us a book with themes relevant for life in our society today when many families are trying to deal with the absence of a loved one in the military. Alice Bliss is a fantastic book for mothers of a teenage girl, for families who have a loved one in the army, navy or air force and for any reader who loves books with terrific characters and a heart-warming, powerful story of love, loss, family, growing up and hope.
Read more of Amy's reviews at: http://homeofaimala.blogspot.com/2011/09/review-alice-bliss-by-laura-harrington.html
A beautiful, poignant, and engaging story that you don’t want to miss
Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington
Reviewed by Amy @ The House of Seven Tails
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
My Thoughts: I read a few reviews of Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington and thought it sounded like an interesting book with a young adult main character. I came across a post on Dawn’s blog, She is Too Fond of Books that grabbed my attention. Laura Harrington, the author of Alice Bliss wanted to send her book on an around-the-world adventure by means of BookCrossing.com. I loved the idea and signed up! When I received a copy of Alice Bliss with a BookCrossing bookplate attached, I registered the book at BookCrossing and received an ID number. Now that I’ve read and reviewed Alice Bliss, I will “release” my copy later this week or early next week in a public place such as a doctor’s waiting room or Starbuck’s. My hope is that another reader will pick up Alice Bliss, register where they found it on BookCrossing and, after they read it, will release it themselves. I’m looking forward to being able to ‘watch’ the journey the book takes around-the-world!
I admit that my initial interest in Alice Bliss was Laura Harrington’s idea to share the book around-the-world. I thought the book sounded good but I honestly didn’t pay a lot of attention to the story. I certainly wasn’t expecting the exceptional reading experience I had with Alice Bliss. The coming-of-age storyline, universal, terrific themes and wonderfully human, flawed characters made for a great book. Ms. Harrington has written a beautiful, poignant and engaging story that you don’t want to miss.
Alice Bliss, at 15-years old, is the oldest of two girls in the Bliss family, a normal American family living in a small town in upstate New York. Ellie is Alice’s 8-year old sister, quirky, adorable and lovable. Angie and Matt are her mom and dad. Angie and Matt are very much in love, although very different people along the mode of “opposites attract”. Alice is a good kid but she’s in that awkward, uncomfortable and confusing stage between little girl and young woman when her hormones and emotions are in constant flux, wreaking havoc on her poor body which feels to Alice like it belongs to a stranger.
Alice adores her father and is very similar to him. Spending time with Matt doing any of the many things he likes to do, including gardening, tossing a baseball around or working in his workshop is where Alice can usually be found. She has a cantankerous relationship with her mother. They don’t seem to understand each other at all and have many issues to work out. The Bliss family is rounded out by a nutty, fun-loving, large Uncle Eddie, Angie’s brother whom Alice adores, and Angie’s mother, Penelope Pearl Bird or Gram, who owns The Bird Sisters coffee shop in town. The one other character I cannot forget to mention is Alice’s best friend and possibly more, Henry. Henry Grover lives down the street from Alice, has been a part of her life since they were small children and is an intelligent, quirky and delightful boy.
Matt enlisted in the army reserves much to his wife’s displeasure and inability to understand. When his unit is called up suddenly as part of a fast-track “high quality, hurry up, move ‘em out training”, no member of the Bliss family is prepared or happy about it, least of all Alice. How she copes with her father’s absence while grappling with the confusing changes and conundrums of growing up, and struggling to make sense of it, provides for a powerful, touching and sometimes funny storyline. It was difficult not being able to whisper kind words in Alice’s ear to let her know she’s not alone or to sit beside her and share her pain (she’s not the hugging type at this stage!) while reading about her days.
Alice Bliss is written from the third-person point of view but it feels very much like Alice’s story. There are no chapters, instead sections in the book are delineated by dates, as if we are reading a journal. This made the story feel even more like Alice’s because diaries and journals are often kept by girls. Additionally, much of the book is about Alice and her daily life during the 6 – 9 months we’re privileged to spend with Alice and the Bliss family. I really liked that Ms. Harrington chose to use dates rather than chapters to mark the progress of the story because it felt more personal and intimate as if we were spending each day with Alice and her family while they coped with Matt’s absence. I enjoyed being able to keep track of Alice’s daily life, ee her progress and anticipate and know when important events were coming up in her life.
Whether or not you feel this is primarily Alice’s story, there’s no doubt she’s the star character. Ms. Harrington’s book is filled with well-developed, very human characters who help to make this book a terrific reading experience but Alice stands out. She’s a remarkable, terrific girl and/or young woman who leaps off the page and into your heart. Intelligent, funny, sweet and thoughtful, she can also be stubborn, irascible, and, sometimes, selfish. Alice’s character bounces between the little girl she’s been and the young, mature woman she’s on her way to becoming, demonstrating, clearly, the puzzling, self-conscious and difficult time Alice is having right now and the varied, extreme feelings all the changes provoke in her.
Ms. Harrington does an amazing job of showing us, clearly, that Alice is in that difficult stage all adolescent girls go through when, not only are their bodies changing in disturbing ways, but their hormones, emotions and thoughts are as well. Like so many young women around her age, Alice is childish and immature one minute and wise beyond her years the next. Ms. Harrington portrays this dichotomy in Alice best when she’s struggling to cope with her father’s absence and her feelings towards Henry. At every turn, I loved Alice and sharing this journey with her. She’s by far one of my favorite characters.
Alice being the primary character in Alice Bliss is partly why I felt this was her story. The relationship Alice has with her mother, Angie, also made me feel this way. Almost every time they speak or encounter one another, they clash and misunderstand each other. I was slightly confused while reading scenes between Angie and Alice because, very often, Alice felt more mature than Angie. Angie was easily irritated by Alice and often didn’t seem to try to get along with her behaving morelike a friend than a mother. Angie even acted envious of Alice’s relationship with her father. It was difficult to like Angie at all in the first third of this book.
As the story progressed and I began to see that this was mostly Alice’s story, I understood the scenes between Alice and Angie better, especially when looked at from Alice’s point of view . It was clear to me that most of what happened in this book was primarily Alice view of how things occurred. Few teenage girls portray their mothers in positive light so when viewed from Alice’s perspective, it made sense that Angie seemed selfish, immature and unkind much of the time. In a few scenes in which Angie’s alone, we get some insight into her character. These scenes clarifiy that Angie isn’t as selfish, unkind and thoughtless as she sometimes appears to be. We also saw what a tough time she’s having coping with Matt’s absence and Alice growing up. Angie is portrayed as a very flawed human being and not always the best mother but I don’t think we were given a totally well-rounded picture of Angie. If there’s any ‘problem’ I had with Alice Bliss it’s that I would have liked to know Angie better and to know more about her relationship with Alice. What I did see of Angie with Alice made me feel enormous sympathy for mothers of teenage girls!
Laura Harrington has written a beautiful, stunning and absorbing book about a young girl maturing into a young woman while coping with the inevitable problems that life throws at us. At the same time, she’s dealing with her relationships with family and friends that change as we change. Ms. Harrington has given us a book with themes relevant for life in our society today when many families are trying to deal with the absence of a loved one in the military. Alice Bliss is a fantastic book for mothers of a teenage girl, for families who have a loved one in the army, navy or air force and for any reader who loves books with terrific characters and a heart-warming, powerful story of love, loss, family, growing up and hope.
Read more of Amy’s reviews at: http://homeofaimala.blogspot.com/2011/09/review-alice-bliss-by-laura-harrington.html
August 15, 2011
Alice Bliss is so tender and such a raw story of growing up amidst war that I have a new appreciation for the loved ones left behind.
[ 7 ]August 8, 2011 | Vera
Reviewed by Colleen Turner
Alice Bliss is in many ways a typical fifteen year old: she argues with her mother, tries hard to take care of her little, precocious sister and is a daddy's girl of the highest caliber. She has spent her life following her father around, learning how to garden, building things in his workshop and going with him on roofing jobs. He has also taught her to be meticulous, gracious and to never let her fears get the best of her. She loves her father beyond all others and has always tried hard to make him proud.
When Matt Bliss decides to enlist in the military, his family is devastated. Alice's mother tries to convince him that this was not part of the plan but has to relent when he makes up his mind that this is something he needs to do. Matt works hard to instill in Alice and her sister, Ellie, all the life lessons he can before shipping out to Iraq, just in case they are needed. He tries hard to convince everyone that he will be home before they know it but also needs to make sure that they will be okay no matter what.
When he leaves, a huge hole opens up in the Bliss family. The glue that so often bound them together and mediated when they began to unravel has been taken away and no one knows quite what to do. As Alice tries hard to pick up the slack of chores, cooking and keeping Ellie from falling apart, she isn't quite sure what to do with her feelings of loss, anger and emptiness. She begins to run track which seems, for a fraction of the time, to clear her mind and make her feel normal. When her feet stop running, though, the pain floods in.
While Matt is away Alice continues to bloom into her own, fighting it tooth and nail and waiting for her father to come home and stop missing out. She learns to drive and begins the tenuous steps of first love. She wants desperately to share all of this with her father but the letters and phone calls are becoming few and far between and she is left to navigate her newly developing world by the good sense her father gave her and his whispered voice in her head. She wants to be strong for Matt and help hold the family together so when he gets home everything – her mother and sister, his workshop, their garden – is as he left it. Can she hold her family, and herself, together until and if that happens?
Warning: do not read Alice Bliss without tissues! It has been awhile since a book moved me to tears, but here I am. Alice Bliss is so tender and such a raw story of growing up amidst war that I have a new appreciation for the loved ones left behind. With all the awkwardness that being a teenager entails, this heaped on top seems too much for anyone to bear. But strong, smart, brave Alice Bliss is a testament to how to move through the pain, the loss and the sadness when the one you love most isn't there.
Rating: 4.5/5
Read more at http://luxuryreading.com/
August 12, 2011
"…a beautifully wrought tale of a young girl growing up in small-town America during our most recent years of craziness and warfare — and all that this does to one family."
by Laura Harrington
Alice Bliss is a typical teenager. She is 13, lives with her parents and sometimes annoying younger sister, has a best friend with whom she shares everything, and is noticing boys for the first time. However, there is little in her life that seems normal these days. When her dad gets called up to active duty in the armed forces, Alice takes to wearing his shirt every day and trying to be strong for her devastated mom.
Laura Harrington's first novel is a beautifully wrought tale of a young girl growing up in small-town America during our most recent years of craziness and warfare — and all that this does to one family. Alice grows up throughout the book, learning to drive, falling in love for the first time, and finding success on the track team. But the one constant amidst her adventures is the need to take care of her mom while her dad is away, a seminal relationship that buoys her.
It is rare for a novel to focus so fully on the relationship between a father and a daughter. In most contemporary books with girl protagonists, it would seem that the rapport they have with each other is not always a positive one. However, Alice's story is built around the way she is affected by both of her parents, and the difference between those two relationships helps to explain the remarkable strengths and age-appropriate weaknesses of this multi-dimensional young woman.
War stories are widespread these days; after all, the U.S. has been at war for the last decade. With the upcoming 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, there are sure to be many more. ALICE BLISS is a very affecting one, an OUR TOWN-like examination, through the life of one typical girl, of the effects that wartime has on everyone.
Although not necessarily a young adult novel, it would be a great, compelling read for teenagers. A story this interesting and yet this sweet is hard to come by, so I think it would be a wonderful conversation starter for kids all over the country who are going through what Alice is dealing with. Engaging and sweet, ALICE BLISS is a great book.
Reviewed by Jana Siciliano on August 4, 2011
August 10, 2011
Heroines of Their Day: London Sunday Times August 7, 2011
Flitting between Lahore and London, in times of war and peace, a host of high-spirited females stride through Elizabeth Buchan's fiction roundup.
Laura Harrington's Alice Bliss (Picador L12.99/ebook L15.99) is also about fracture, this time of a family. American reservist Matt Bliss has been sent to Iraq, leaving his wife and daughters to cope on the home front with varying degrees of success. Seen mainly through the eyes of 15-year-old Alice — whose relationship with her father is tenderly and movingly realized — she struggles to come to terms with this unlooked-for coming of age. "I had the luxury of not needing to believe in anything … but wish I believed in all of it," she confesses to her mother. The setting and writing style is American through and through, but the relationships at its heart are recognizable anywhere.
July 16, 2011
"This book captivated my heart …"
by Nicole @ Marine Wife Unplugged @
http://marinewifeunplugged.blogspot.com/2011/06/alice-bliss-my-second-book-review.html
I may as well write while the emotions presented in Laura Harrington's novel, Alice Bliss, are still raw in my mind. I only put the book down about 10 minutes ago, and I'm still drawn speechless, but if I wait longer to write this, to find some measly words, I'll be even more speechless.
Riveted with the call of duty and the battle between love-and-let-go, this book captivated my heart and took full control over my emotions with each page turn. I purposely did not read the synopsis because I like to be surprised. Perhaps, well, perhaps I should have prepared myself a bit. Still, I'm glad I didn't. Having no idea what I was about to read caused me to feel the climax of the story with more intensity. Alice Bliss articulates every military wife's struggles, fears, and the dirty work civilians can't fathom. I was blown away.
There are secrets in this book. Secrets that are whispered between the lines. Secrets that lie between first kisses and first dances, first heartbreaks, first season crops, and boxes of secret letters, whisper, "It's all worth it."
Matt Bliss is in the National Guard and though his family is not happy about his service, they support him. They love him. Their lives come to the familiar halt that active and reservist wives experience to some degree at one time or another when Matt is deployed to Iraq. They press on. They get down to business, exploiting their plans, unfurling their goals, eating simple foods that match their one-track minds, barely masking their pain as they try to live lives that make Matt proud. Matt's the kind of man every man of courage and character can relate to and every woman wishes she had: devoted to his family, devoted to his duty. He's the kind of father a girl can't help but admire. And admire is exactly what Alice does.
I can't possibly put into words the impact this book had on me. Between the familiar sarcasm of Alice and Ellie, the laughter I shared through Uncle Eddie's antics and charming "advice," the raw emotions and pain in Angie's struggle to be a mother and deal with a growing and rebellious teen, and the genuine motherly love of Gram, I was lost in another world. I'm not a fast reader and yet I went through my days wondering what melody Henry might play for me next. Ms. Harrington, you've won my heart with your work. And I hope my review makes your book sales sky-rocket.
Every one of you who reads this review should read this book. You have to. I'm almost begging you to. It's easy reading, written in a journal format. You'll probably learn some new vocabulary words, too.
A huge thank you to Meredith Burks of Penguin Group (USA) for approaching me with the honor of reviewing Alice Bliss, to Penguin for publishing good literature worth reading, and especially to Laura Harrington for really engaging the "behind closed doors" truth and harsh reality of military life with its unexpected twists and turns. I'm still fishing for words in a puddle, trying to grab at something that might make people want to read this book while in truth, I'm still speechless. Five stars, two thumbs up. (And two big toes.)
July 8, 2011
"A glimpse of the other side of war that the public eye rarely sees."
Posted by Wife on the Rollercoaster @ www.ridingtherollercoaster.com
When I first started reading Alice Bliss , a novel by Laura Harrington about a teenage girl coping with her father's deployment to Iraq, I had no intention of getting overly emotional. I've lived through my husband's deployments. I've lived vicariously through friends' deployments. I've read military spouse memoirs about deployments. This book can't possibly present a perspective of life on the home front that I haven't previously encountered in some way, shape, or form. Plus, it's a novel. It's not real. It's just a story. Right?
Wrong. It's not just a story. It did present a different perspective. And I did get overly emotional.
Alice Bliss is your typical 15-year-old girl, trying to figure out who she is and where she fits into this world. Suddenly, her father, a member of the New York National Guard, is deployed to Iraq, and Alice's world turns upside down. She joins the track team and learns how to drive, while the fighting with her mother escalates and the possibility of love presents itself. These may be common rites of passage for teenage girls, but for Alice, they only make her miss her father even more.
Any military spouse who has waited on the home front during a deployment can relate to the emotions and events described throughout the book. We can empathize with the anticipation of letters in the mailbox and the ambivalence toward newspapers. We know all about the desire to wear our husbands' clothes and the relief of hearing his voice on the phone. We've struggled with finding ways to talk to our kids about where their fathers are and avoiding thoughts about the what-ifs. We've wondered how to play the role of both a mother and a father and how to find the strength to carry on. We've experienced the fear of hearing that knock on the door and the desperate need to find a sense of normal.
I've gone through all of those emotions myself during my husband's deployments. What I haven't experienced is those emotions as a teenage girl. At 15 years old, Alice Bliss is old enough to understand where her father is and the possibility that he might not come home, but not quite old enough to know how to cope with it. I couldn't help but get emotionally involved as Alice tries to keep herself together, keep her family together, and work through her anger, fear, and confusion as she attempts to hold onto her father's presence through his absence. I wondered how I would have reacted to my father going off to war when I was Alice's age. And I wondered how my own young daughter would react if she were a teenager in Alice's shoes and how I would be able to comfort her.
Although Alice Bliss is a fictional character, the story is an accurate representation of what so many military families have endured over the last ten years of war. Well-written and poignant, heartbreaking yet optimistic, the book gives the audience a behind-the-scenes look at life on the home front, a glimpse of the other side of war that the public eye rarely sees. I highly recommend this book. But I also recommend buying a box of tissues to go with it.
Read more at this excellent milspouse blog: http://www.ridingtherollercoaster.com
"These characters were so well drawn, they were part of the one percent like me."
MAY 11, 2011
by libarmywife
from Left Face – The Other Milspouse Blog
www.leftface.wordpress.com
I've been asked to review a few books, all military family related. I've read some really good ones and some absolutely awful ones. This one, this one is one of the really good ones.
The book is "Alice Bliss" by Laura Harrington. I'm not going to give out the ending but this is the story of Alice Bliss, a 14 year old girl, whose father is Reserve/Guard and who is activated for duty in Iraq, during those years of constant Guard activations. Ms. Harrington writes about Alice's mother Angie's reaction to the deployment , a reaction many of us have seen or experienced ourselves, together with that awful teenager/mother relationship. Alice's typical teenage adoration of her dad and then the new relationship with the boy next door she has known all her life; not to mention the adorable, funny, little old lady of a little sister, Ellie. There's Gram, who is the strong woman and rock that this family leans on, the crazy uncle Eddie; this family is everyone's family. Ladies, do you remember when your daddy was the most perfect person in the world? He was the only one who understood you? And your mother, well really, she was just awful, she didn't understand anything at all, she'd never been young, she was just impossible. This is Alice's life; she's daddy's best helper, his assistant, his girl. When he leaves, she is bereft in ways that she can't explain.
After a few pages of the book, I was sure this was written by a member of a military family. I was wrong, the pages of information I was sent along with the book told me Ms. Harrington has no connection to this current military at all. But she's got it right: the mother's incapability of continuing to function in the home; Alice's refusal to give up or wash a shirt of her dad's; the "backwards dinner" or the cereal meals, it's written with such sympathy and love and understanding.
One of the "little things" that stood out for me was the box of letters she finds, written by her father for her to open when she needs to hear from him, for the big moments or the small ones. This is one of those things we in the military family can understand – but most civilians would either think was morbid or just strange! A bit like planning funerals for our deployed spouses, right?
I don't cry a lot, and I really don't cry when I read a book, but these characters were so well drawn, they were part of the 1% like me, and I cried for them, laughed with them and wanted to give them a shoulder to lean on when they were hurting. I've met that woman at an FRG meeting, I've seen that teenager slumped in the halls of the schools we meet in, I've read their cries for help on Facebook and on blogs, I've met them at conferences. I'd like everyone else to meet them – especially the other 99%.
If you get a chance to read this, do it. But if you are going through deployment, wait until he gets home. Then pick it up and meet the Bliss family
"These characters were so well drawn, they were part of the 1 percent like me."
MAY 11, 2011
by libarmywife
from Left Face – The Other Milspouse Blog
www.leftface.wordpress.com
I've been asked to review a few books, all military family related. I've read some really good ones and some absolutely awful ones. This one, this one is one of the really good ones.
The book is "Alice Bliss" by Laura Harrington. I'm not going to give out the ending but this is the story of Alice Bliss, a 14 year old girl, whose father is Reserve/Guard and who is activated for duty in Iraq, during those years of constant Guard activations. Ms. Harrington writes about Alice's mother Angie's reaction to the deployment , a reaction many of us have seen or experienced ourselves, together with that awful teenager/mother relationship. Alice's typical teenage adoration of her dad and then the new relationship with the boy next door she has known all her life; not to mention the adorable, funny, little old lady of a little sister, Ellie. There's Gram, who is the strong woman and rock that this family leans on, the crazy uncle Eddie; this family is everyone's family. Ladies, do you remember when your daddy was the most perfect person in the world? He was the only one who understood you? And your mother, well really, she was just awful, she didn't understand anything at all, she'd never been young, she was just impossible. This is Alice's life; she's daddy's best helper, his assistant, his girl. When he leaves, she is bereft in ways that she can't explain.
After a few pages of the book, I was sure this was written by a member of a military family. I was wrong, the pages of information I was sent along with the book told me Ms. Harrington has no connection to this current military at all. But she's got it right: the mother's incapability of continuing to function in the home; Alice's refusal to give up or wash a shirt of her dad's; the "backwards dinner" or the cereal meals, it's written with such sympathy and love and understanding.
One of the "little things" that stood out for me was the box of letters she finds, written by her father for her to open when she needs to hear from him, for the big moments or the small ones. This is one of those things we in the military family can understand – but most civilians would either think was morbid or just strange! A bit like planning funerals for our deployed spouses, right?
I don't cry a lot, and I really don't cry when I read a book, but these characters were so well drawn, they were part of the 1% like me, and I cried for them, laughed with them and wanted to give them a shoulder to lean on when they were hurting. I've met that woman at an FRG meeting, I've seen that teenager slumped in the halls of the schools we meet in, I've read their cries for help on Facebook and on blogs, I've met them at conferences. I'd like everyone else to meet them – especially the other 99%.
If you get a chance to read this, do it. But if you are going through deployment, wait until he gets home. Then pick it up and meet the Bliss family
