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Alice Bliss: A Novel
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Alice Bliss: A Novel
Unavailable
Alice Bliss: A Novel
Audiobook9 hours

Alice Bliss: A Novel

Written by Laura Harrington

Narrated by Kate Rudd

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Outside the back window Alice can see the outlines of the garden, some of the furrows visible under the snow, stretching away in long thin rows. She can't imagine doing the garden without her dad. It's his thing; she's always thought of herself as his assistant at best. She can't imagine doing anything without her dad and she starts to feel like she can't breathe. And then she looks at him. Just looks at him as he watches the fire with muffin crumbs on his lap.
"I'll write to you."
"I know, sweetheart."
"Every day."

-From Alice Bliss

When Alice Bliss learns that her father, Matt, is being deployed to Iraq, she's heartbroken. Alice idolizes her father, loves working beside him in their garden, accompanying him on the occasional roofing job, playing baseball. When he ships out, Alice is faced with finding a way to fill the emptiness he has left behind.

Matt will miss seeing his daughter blossom from a tomboy into a full-blown teenager. Alice will learn to drive, join the track team, go to her first dance, and fall in love, all while trying to be strong for her mother, Angie, and take care of her precocious little sister, Ellie. But the smell of Matt is starting to fade from his blue shirt, which Alice wears every day, and the phone calls are never long enough.

Alice Bliss is a profoundly moving coming-of-age novel about love and its many variations-the support of a small town looking after its own; love between an absent father and his daughter; the complicated love between an adolescent girl and her mother; and an exploration of new love with the boy next door. These characters' struggles amid uncertain times echo our own, lending the novel an immediacy and a poignancy that are both relevant and real. At once universal and very personal, Alice Bliss is a transforming story about those who are left at home during wartime and a teenage girl bravely facing the future.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 2, 2011
ISBN9781455816477
Unavailable
Alice Bliss: A Novel

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Reviews for Alice Bliss

Rating: 4.038461547252747 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Heartbreaking and realistic - Laura Harrington transported me back to the angst of being 15 so easily I forgot that Alice wasn't a real person. The tension between her and her mother, the wavering of feelings, the anger, the unsurety of being a teenage girl was so well written. When her dad goes off to Iraq she has lost her anchor, the one person she looks up to and who understands her and she feels adrift. As she, her sister and mother begin to learn how to navigate this strange new dynamic it is a realistic portrayal of what happens when the glue that holds a family together is no longer there. This is a story born from love - it is evident in every word.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was an interesting debut - heartfelt and seemingly real. Harrington is a lyricist and librettist and these talents are evident in the dialogue. The story fell a bit short for me as it seemed too simple, as though there were more impressive heights Harrington could have aspired to, but couldn't pull it off.This novel would make a great mother-daughter (I would say girls aged 13+) read. I also think it offers a good portrait of families at home while their loved ones are away, fighting wars. Alice Bliss was a quick read and it is a good platform for Harrington's potential as a novelist. I would be interested in reading more from her and hope that her abilities develop well.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    There are some books that pry long-forgotten memories out of the dusty corners of your brain, unfold them on a table and force you to look at them. Alice Bliss was like this for me.Alice Bliss is a 14-year old girl who loves her father very much. So when his reserve unit is called up to go to Iraq, her world turns upside down. Although she goes through the motions of her everyday- joins the track team, explores love, deals with the glimpses she gets of the adult relationship between her mother and father, the worry and anxiety she feels for her absent father colours everything she does.Where do I begin reviewing this? I could talk about Harrington’s interesting decisions when it comes to viewpoint- the book is in third person close, but not always from Alice’s perspective. She flits from character to character, like a butterfly who can read minds. At first this jarred me, but ultimately I think it works. We get Alice’s perspective as well as that of her mother, her grandmother, her best friend Henry. It is like getting a sweeping cinematic landscape shot but inside the brains of the characters.Or the mounting tension, of seeing each member of the family slowly crumble under the weight of their own grief.Or maybe how it is a simple book, with a simple plot and yet encompasses all the meat of our everyday- of growing up, of the complexity and simplicity of love. Of how we keep on keeping on even when we don’t think we can…How each of the characters are flawed, beautiful, believable, from the mother who struggles to keep the family together with varying success, to the little sister who finds refuge in the dictionary and long words.On a personal note, I read this book in one day, sitting on the couch, crying my eyes out. Though it is true, books have been known to bring me to tears from time to time, none as much as this one. The memories it brought back were of heading back to my class after a dictée and seeing the Base Commander with his arms around my sobbing mother. Of being ushered in the class by my teacher and then minutes later being told to come with her. Of my mother taking me by the shoulders and telling me my father was dead. Of the funeral with all my father’s friends in their uniforms, nightmarish copies of my own father. Of my mother crying in her room in the dark, inconsolable.Christ. It was a good book. You should read it. It probably won’t slice you in half like it did me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I did enjoy this but it wasn't a 'page turner'. I found the latter third of the book the most compelling and emotional.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The war in Iraq has been going on for so many years now that it can be very easy to forget that we are still sending soldiers over there, soldiers who leave family and loved ones at home worried about their safety and just trying to go on with daily life as best they can in the face of an uncertain future. There are tv shows capturing the deeply emotional moments of a returning soldier surprising his child, parent, wife, etc. but there's very little media coverage of these same loved ones' lives while that soldier was half way across the world. Laura Harrington has captured what it means for families and particularly children old enough to understand the risks and ramifications of a soldier father (or mother) in her novel Alice Bliss.Teenaged Alice is a daddy's girl, her uncomplicated relationship with him a direct counterpoint to her difficult relationship with her mother. She's a tomboy who shares her father's interests and she is crushed when she learns that he is being sent to Iraq. She is angry and devastated and unsure just exactly how she can go forward in life without her father right there with her. But go on she does, changing and maturing, fighting with her mother, trying new things, and cherishing the brief phone calls and longer letters from her dad. She wants everything to stay the same for him when he comes home but life doesn't stand still. Alice starts running on the track team, learns to drive, goes to her first dance, all without her father.This novel is loaded with emotions right on the edge. Alice narrates the story and she is a typical teenager, vulnerable and defensive, but with added weight. Harrington has drawn her characters completely realistically. The tension and relationship between Alice and her mother Angie rings true at every moment of the narrative. And her interactions with her best friend and her younger sister are equally real and authentic. Readers will be touched by this young girl struggling to come of age and to grow into herself even as she doesn't want life to change so it is still recognizable to her father. Being a teenager is hard no matter how you slice it but when your father, the family's north star, is away fighting a war no one wants to talk about, it is that much more difficult, that much more raw, that much more emotional. And this book is nothing if not highly emotional. You'll feel for the Bliss family as they face fear and the implacability of the military at war. And even though the climax of the novel is not at all unexpected, Harrington has written an honest and heartwrenching look at what happens to the families at home that will keep readers engrossed until the last page.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a very moving book about Alice Bliss, a teenager whose dad, Matt, is sent to Iraq with the Army Reserve. In some ways, it’s the story of the very ordinary tensions between a mother and her daughter, as her daughter grows and changes. However, all these tensions are compounded when they’re told that Matt is missing in action, and the book is also about how they deal with this. Alice is a strong character, I enjoyed the way in which the story is told from her point of view, I very much liked her narrative voice, and there are a number of telling moments in the book that I very much appreciated. It’s sad but probably realistic to see that the tension between Alice and her mother, Angie, continues even after Matt is reported missing. For all the advice parenting manuals and counseling books give on how to deal with a situation like this, it’s entirely understandable that it’s difficult for parents to be there – as ideal parents – for their children when they're upset and worried themselves, and likewise, Alice’s own reactions to the situation sometimes make things more difficult for her mother. Alice and Angie are both well-intentioned and sympathetic but flawed characters, and that’s another thing that I liked about this book, and that made it even more moving for me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a book I really liked. It is narrated by Alice Bliss aged fifteen. Alice loves her father very much but cannot understand why he needs to go and fight a war, that she does not believe in. The family, Alice and her sister and mother try to cope with his absence as best as they can. They live for his letters when they can get them and they try to carry on with their every day life. Each of them tries to find solace in their own way. Alice joins the track team and discovers that she is actually good at running, and that when she runs she is able to forget about what is happening in her life. But then when her father is declared missing things become even harder as they realise he may never return. Alice immerses herself in the garden that she would plant with her father, keen to carry it on exactly as he would have, and she lives in one of his shirts. She spends a lot of time with Henry the boy next door, a life long friend, whom she turns to for support. I loved the character of Alice. It was very well done, and a believabale character. This was a beautiful and moving story that made me both laugh and cry . There was so much detail. It made it very real. I shall not forget the character of Alice for a long time and i am keen to see if this author has written any other books.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I too will remember Alice Bliss - this was a beautifully written book about the family left behind when a father and husband is deployed. My father is retired Air Force and when I was 11 years old, he was deployed to Vietnam for a year. My mother, brother and I faced numerous challenges that year so I can relate to what the Bliss family went through. I look forward to reading other books by Laura Harrington.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I will remember the character of Alice Bliss for a very long time. She ranks right up there with Olive Kitteredge. This book made me cry and laugh. I loved it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    a current coming-of-age novel with a family dealing with deployment to Iraq. Alice Bliss is a normal teen facing normal transitions and changes but also must deal with her father's deployment to Iraq. It's a novel everyone can relate to - facing the absence of someone important in your life and how your outlook on the world around you changes.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A daughter, very close to her Dad, struggles to cope when he heads off to Iraq. This was the synopsis I read and it was an idea that intrigued and I wanted to see how well it conveyed the uncertainty and ache of missing a family member away in a conflict; it does this very well and I think Alice's voice is beautifully written capturing the self-centredness of a teenage girl but still providing a character that you empathise with.Alongside the story of Alice, and her family, waiting for news from Iraq we also have her awakening as a young women with a love triangle that will appeal to the YA female market. It is a very believable story and the only slightly jarring note are the points when the narrative voice jumps to Alice's mum as your sympathy has been built up with Alice and thus hearing her mum's point of view makes you feel a little uncomfortable.I would certainly encourage my daughter to read this and feel it has much to offer to older readers too.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Being a teenage girl, dealing with everything that adolescence, first love, and high school bring, is hard enough – but imagine doing it while worrying about your father, who is serving in Iraq. Alice Bliss adores her father, and is devastated when he leaves for active duty. She tries to hold things together at home, caring for her younger sister, Ellie, while her mother disappears inside her anxiety and grief. With the help of her uncle Eddie, her grandmother, and her best friend, Henry, Alice comes of age while her father is gone.The novel Alice Bliss began as a one-act, one-woman musical by author and playwright Laura Harrington. When I heard that, I was intrigued to see how the story would transfer into novel form. When I was a theater major, I read a ton of plays, and the experience of reading a play is very different than reading a novel. Other than a few stage directions and brief character descriptions, a script is all dialogue. The world of the play is all up to your imagination. When I started reading Alice Bliss, I expected it to be short on description and setting. I was very wrong.Laura Harrington is a fantastic storyteller who writes description, setting, and character beautifully – and her dialogue is as good as you would expect from a playwright. As I read, Alice quickly became one of my favorite teenage protagonists – her fierce love of her father allows the reader to come to know Matt as well as if he was present for the entire book, when, in reality, he deploys very close to the beginning of the story. The father-daughter relationship between Matt and Alice is lovely to experience. It was such a joy to witness Alice growing and maturing, trying to come to terms with her father’s absence. She has all the normal experiences of her age: learning to drive, having her first kiss, discovering who she is – but she is doing it while trying to hold her family together.While this is very much Alice’s story, the other characters are as fully realized as she is. The book isn’t written in first person, so we get to know each of the characters through their interior monologue. The blossoming of the relationship between Alice and her best friend, Henry, was one of the most perfect things about this book. If only every young girl who is missing her father had a Henry in her life! Harrington also does a brilliant job of exploring the prickly relationship that exists between a teenage girl and her mother. Alice needs her mother, Angie, but doesn’t want to. Angie becomes so embroiled in her own anxiety and grief – and anger at Matt for leaving her – that she doesn’t have any emotional strength left to try to understand what Alice is dealing with. As I read, I found myself getting very frustrated with Angie, while at the same time feeling desperately sorry for her. It is truly a testament to Harrington’s writing that I came to care about all of these characters so very deeply.Alice Bliss is such a timely book. As I read, I couldn’t help but think about all the girls – and boys – here in the US who are worrying for their mothers and fathers in the military. They will need stories to read about people like them, and I believe Alice’s story is an important one. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Just once in a while, there comes a beautiful novel that ticks all the boxes. "Alice Bliss" does that remarkably well.The story is told through 15 year old Alice, whose life is much like any other teenager's growing up in 21st Century America. Life is good for Alice. She is lucky enough to have loving parents, Matt and Angie, and a younger sister, 8 year old mini genius, Ellie. Alice's relationship with her father is particularly strong, and they share a precious bond together. So her world is shattered when Matt announces that he wants to "do his part for his country" by joining the New York National Guard, from where he is subsequently posted to fight the war in Iraq. Despite his family's protestations, Matt will not be deterred and his family must learn to survive without him awaiting his safe return. Alice vows to take care of her mother and sister whilst he is away.....and care for Matt's vegetable garden....something they have always taken pride in doing together.Matt's letters home are eagerly awaited and every word is devoured by the family. Angie, not the world's best homemaker, often leaves the girls to fend for themselves. Not out of neglect, it is just her way of doing things, so the girls rely heavily on their Grandmother, or Gram, and their Uncle Eddie who both contribute so much to the family in Matt's absence. Alice's relationship with best friend Henry, who lives down the street, becomes more intense and confusing and Alice realises how much she also relied on Matt for emotional support.Then comes the news the family have been dreading. Matt is declared missing, after an ambush in Feluja, but even now, the family are determined to live in hope and carry on as if he is still alive. Touchingly, Alice turns her father's workshop in to a kind of bedroom where she can go in quiet moments to study and to care for Matt's tools and belongings. It is somewhere she can go to absorb the essence of her father.A short time later, further news arrives, and I found this part of the book exceptionally strong in it's portrayl of this small family. Laura Harrington has a deft way with words and manages to convey real emotion and bewilderment through the eyes of young and old.I could not put this book down and consequently found myself wide awake, at 3 am, grabbing tissues by the handful!A remarkable debut novel, and one which I believe everyone should read as a portrait of growing up , grief, strong family ties and dedication to duty. Most of all it is a beautiful testament to the love between a father and daughter. A love which one young girl will carry in her heart forever.This book was made available to me, by the publisher, for an honest review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Alice Bliss has a complicated relationship with her mother, as do many girls of that fifteen. Alice and her father, Matt, are very close. They both love to garden, and she enjoys helping him build things.So Alice is understandably devastated when her father's National Guard unit is deployed to Iraq. Of course it's stressful for her mother, Angie and her eight-year-old sister Ellie, but it can't possibly be as hard for either of them as for Alice. Yes, Alice is self-centered, as many teens are.Although the book is written in the third-person, and much of it is from Alice's point of view, we do occasionally get a glimpse of Angie's feelings, and Ellie's and even those of Alice's best friend Henry. Henry's devotion to Alice is simple and absolute, and is described by Harrington in words akin to poetry.But mostly we live and breathe through Alice. We empathize with her as she wears one of her father's shirt to a rag, discovers the release of running and yearns for attempts to remember Matt's voice and image.Although Alice Bliss is being marketed to adults, it's also appropriate forteens. The numbers may be decreasing as American soldiers return home, but there are still many who have relatives or friends deployed overseas. Of course in many cases, a soldier is a soldier, regardless of which flag she or he fights under.Looking back at this review, the words summarizing and describing Alice Bliss seem inadequate. This amazing novel may become a classic in the vein of To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Alice Bliss is a teen-aged girl. She is also a “Daddy’s Girl”. When her Reservist father is shipped out to Iraq, she is heartbroken. Finding one of his shirts in the clothes hamper and begins to wear it, much to the dismay of her mother and embarrassment of her sister.In her grief, she searches for a ways to fill the void he leaves behind. Alice joins the track team, much to her own surprise. Growing into a young woman in her father’s absence, she also attends her first dance, and falls in love. She is doing all of this without her father. Letters and phone calls are not ever enough, and his scent on the shirt is fading. It is hard for Alice to be strong for herself, much less for her mother and sister. They are dealing with his absence in their own ways.Laura Harrington has written a coming of age story that is important for our time, with today’s harsh reality of war and loss. She gives us a glimpse of people who are living through things that we all do, in a time that is especially difficult. Yet she offers hope through characters we can relate to.Love is the ultimate healer, in its many forms. Alice Bliss and Laura Harrington remind us of this in a very warm and poignant book.