How to store and echo multiple lines elegantly in bash?

Question

I'm trying to capture a block of text into a variable, with newlines maintained, then echo it.

However, the newlines don't seemed to be maintained when I am either capturing the text or displaying it.

Any ideas regarding how I can accomplish this?

Example:

#!/bin/bash

read -d '' my_var <<"BLOCK"
this
is
a
test
BLOCK

echo $my_var

Output:

this is a test

Desired output:

this

is

a

test

Answer 1

echo "$my_var"