I'm not exactly sure what to say about this book. It's set during the Vietnam War, and Bliss is the teenage daughter of hippies who leave her with her rich, conservative grandmother in the South while they run off to Canada to avoid the draft. Bliss's grandmother enrolls her in a private school, because, well, the public schools are integrated. Just about all of the students at Bliss's school attend there because their parents don't want them attending an integrated institution, and those values have rubbed off on most of the students. Bliss believes in civil rights and is horrified by the wrong-headedness of her peers, but she makes friends with them anyway, because Bliss desperately wants friends her own age; she's never had any, because she used to live on a commune, where there weren't any teenagers.She also, however, makes friends with a girl named Sandy, who is large, largely made fun of, and, really isn't very likeable. When Bliss first tries to befriend her, Sandy doesn't seem interested. Then she seems to interested. Sandy is really very creepy.
Well, the whole book is really very creepy. Did I mention that the school is on the grounds of an old convent, and that one of initiates apparently flung herself from a window of one of the buildings? And that Bliss hears voices in her head everytime she gets near that building?
It is creepy. It's well-done and compelling, but I did expect more from it; I really thought there'd be a big twist at the end, and I'm still not convinced that I didn't miss something. The ending was pretty unsatisfying, for me, and I almost hope that I didn't get it, that there's more to it than I could see.