Rickie_'s Full Review: Francesca Lia Block - Dangerous Angels: The Weetzi...
Note: This is not just an article about the Weetzie Bat books, although it says a lot about them. It is more about Francesca Lia Block's writing in general, but since I can't just write about her, I decided to put it here.
In most books and movies set in Los Angeles, the city is depicted as a dreary place where young starlets' dreams are crushed, heartbreak prevails around every corner, and the glittering facade of Hollywood hides a city that is unrelentingly cruel and heartless. One Orange County author stands out from the pack: Francesca Lia Block's novels show L.A. in a drastically different light. In her books, L.A. is a magical place filled with supernatural forces and wondrous, life-affirming characters constantly searching for love and affection.
Born in L.A. and educated at U. Cal Berkeley, Francesca Lia Block has written almost a dozen short novels about life in the city, starting with 1989's Weetzie Bat, her latest this year's The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold. Block has won many awards for her work-including honors from the American Library Association and the School Library Journal-and amassed a cult following, which is evident by the number of websites and zines created in honor of her work.
Block is best known for her Weetzie Bat series of books. These short novels chronicle the adventures of Weetzie Bat, an energetic punk-rock girl who lives in L.A. with her gay best friend Dirk, his lover Duck, her boyfriend My Secret Agent Lover Man, and their children, Cherokee and Witch Baby. These fun-loving characters are always looking for romance and fulfillment, no matter what form they may come in.
The first book in the series, Weetzie Bat, plays like a modern version of Aladdin: Weetzie discovers a genie living inside Dirk's grandmother's brass jar, and uses it to make three wishes that change the lives of the characters. The three following novels center mainly on the lives of Weetzie's children and their quests to find and keep love. The last novel in the series, Baby Be-Bop, is actually a prequel about Dirk's life before he meets Weetzie. The five Weetzie Bat novels have recently been compiled in Dangerous Angels, available from HarperCollins Publishing.
In addition to the Weetzie Bat series, Block has also written a number of other short novels that feature young adults. Her most recent full-length novel, 1999's Violet and Claire, is a touching story about a friendship that develops between two outsiders at an L.A. high school. Block chronicles the bond that develops between the semi-gothic amateur filmmaker Violet and the faerie-loving wannabe poet Claire in three parts: the first from Violet's point of view, the second from Claire's, and the third from the third person-an interesting setup that helps advance and clarify the story. While darker than Block's earlier work, the novel manages to present versions of both Hollywood and adolescence that are strikingly different from those presented by more mainstream young adult authors.
Do not be fooled by Block's seemingly shallow and fanciful style. Her books, like a lot of other young adult novels, deal with serious issues such as homophobia, racism, identity crises and the loss of loved ones. What makes Block's characters different is that they do not wallow in their self-pity, as many other characters in young adult novels do. While characters like Weetzie Bat certainly would have reason to gripe about their problems (Weetzie is a child of divorcees who lives with her depressed, alcoholic mother), they don't, instead going on with their lives in an optimistic, but not naive, fashion.
Years before J.K. Rowling reinvigorated the youth market with the Harry Potter books and Buffy's Angel moved to LA, Block blended elements of traditional storytelling and fairy tales in her writing, an innovative contrast to the prevailing trend of exploring the harsh realities of adoloscence. Convential wisdom at the time feared that young adults would find magical spirits such as pixies and ghosts irrelevant, and that including fantastic elements in a product targeted at adolescents would make the books seem childish and imaginary-two kisses of death in modern YA writing. Instead, Block's use of the magical and supernatural enhances the themes of her stories; rather than making them seem two-dimensional, the use of fantasy further develops her characters, further distinguishing them from stereotypical, cardboard-cutout weird, disaffected teenage outsiders common in the genre.
Block's novels and short stories expertly mesh together exotic characters, pop culture, and the supernatural into a thrilling, lyrical collage both realistic and out of this world. Her books read like pure poetry and create feeling that the reader has not so much read a book as gone through an experience. If you're looking for a different kind of reading selection this holiday season, look no further than Francesca Lia Block, an author who will have you thinking about adolescence, family relations, and the City of Angels in a whole new way.
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