She Flies with Faeries Reviews: BLISS by Shay Mitchell and Michaela Blaney

Title: Bliss

Authors: Shay Mitchell and Michaela Blaney with Valerie Frenkel

My Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Sophia Marcus, 21, has already mapped out every aspect of her glamorous life as a Hollywood actor on her vision board. But her life right now in Toronto is anything but exciting. Attending fruitless auditions during the day and working at a douche-y club at night, Sophia is starting to feel like she’s going nowhere…slowly.

Demi Michaels, Sophia’s best friend, didn’t go to college after high school. Short of ideas for her own future, she puts her energy into building the perfect relationship with an older man. And when that relationship crashes and burns, Demi is left to pick up the pieces.

Sophia’s friend (and Demi’s frenemy) Leandra Hunting doesn’t give a crap about hard work or a loving relationship. She has other plans for her future. After college graduation, Leandra sets out to travel the world in the yachts, planes and limos of ridiculously wealthy men. Will any of them be able to show her what love really means–if she can take off her Chanel sunglasses long enough to see it?

Set in the exotic, intoxicating worlds of Hollywood, Thailand, and London, Bliss paints a relatable portrait of life in your early twenties with equal parts optimism and fear, hope and disappointment, expectation and reality. It’s the Age of Uncertainty when you can count on nothing, but, if you’re lucky enough to have one truly great friend, you can survive just about anything.

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If you knew me, you probably already know that I do like Pretty Little Liars (even though it’s quite crazy and well, you know what it is), and I actually like checking out the first novels of celebrities (because why not?) just to see how it goes.

Well, Shay Mitchell’s BLISS actually had a nice blurb so I thought, why not?

Let’s start with the good stuff first:

1. I thought the book actually had good premise. 3 Friends, interwoven stories, growing up and what-not. That’s basically my kind of thing, you know?
2. Well, upon reading the book I realized it was pretty nice. Nothing too poetic and prose was not deep, BUT, it was quite enjoyable—especially if you’re looking for a good, light read. It reminded me of Dorothy Koomsoon, early Alexandra Potter, some Lauren Weisberger, etc.
3. I like the imagery! This book takes you places, at least figuratively. You have Vancouver, Phuket, London, etc.
4. I’d say somehow, it was also realistic because it deals with issues that 20-somethings usually deal with right now, too—just a bit more exaggerated, though…

Then, the not so good:

1. Uhm, the characters were pretty much all over the place. For 20-somethings, they’re quite immature(!), but hey, a lot of us 20-somethings aka Millenials also probably don’t know what we’re doing. My only problem is that the way it was written made me feel like they could have been more—like there was more to explore but those things just were not explored. I wished the characters actually had more depth. L
2. A couple of stereotypes. (i.e., tourists being scammed, spoiled little rich girls, etc.) They were just passé.
3. There were times when the story itself felt like it was all over the place, especially near the end and you just wish the authors would just get straight to the point already.

But here’s the thing: For a first novel, this was actually good, and I might be reading part 2, if there was any. So, yeah, over-all, it’s still worth-reading—especially if you need a light read—and something you’d be able to relate to.