LitPick Review
Broadcast seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, Blissful Days offers residents of the war-ravaged Sectors a glimpse of idyllic Bliss Island. Every week, millions of viewers delight in the islanders' picturesque home and seemingly saccharine lives. But for protagonist Nettie Starling, Blissful Days feels more like a prison than a paradise. As one of the show's Characters, Nettie's lackluster ratings jeopardize her life on Blissful Days— and her safety. Though the fate of "cut" characters remains shrouded in mystery, the lurid rumors brewing among her fellow cast members have terrified Nettie all the same. So when her producer, Luz, offers suggestions on how win the audience's hearts, she can't help but rejoice in her newfound popularity. But as Luz's suggestions intensify into commands, Nettie unearths the not-so-blissful secret behind Blissful Days. Will she surrender to Blissful Days' tyranny, or sabotage her "blissful" life for a chance at freedom?
Opinion:
Rock never lets background info bog down the plot, yet Scripted still managed to immerse me in the Blissful Days subculture. Through Island-specific words ("camperf", "fralling") and vivid figurative language ("What if Callen were with me, watching the jellyfish, their transparent, filmy skins undulating through the water like silk scarves fluttering in the air?"), Rock crafts a rich, superbly-developed dystopia while maintaining an engaging, if not exactly breakneck, progression of internal and external conflicts. Although Rock endows nearly every major character with internal, as well as external, plotlines, I would've appreciated more emphasis on Lia's subplot. Lia seems to undergo personal growth, yet her subplot never amounts to the hopeful, satisfying turnaround she and— readers— deserve. Nevertheless, Scripted remains a fresh, gratifying read sure to charm fans of The Truman Show, Lois Lowry's The Giver, or Veronica Roth's Divergent.
