Francesca Lia Block, winner of the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award, is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling books, including Weetzie Bat; the book collections Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books and Roses and Bones: Myths, Tales, and Secrets; the illustrated novella House of Dolls; the vampire romance novel Pretty Dead; and the gothic werewolf novel The Frenzy. Her work is published around the world.
Gr 9 Up‘The title of this collection comes from the story in which two girls create their own magazine, Girl Goddess. As if they were on a talk show, Lady Ivory (Emily) and Alabaster Duchess (Anna) breathlessly describe the thrill of their creative/chaotic experiences, including interviewing a rock star. The tale flits among letters, interviews, and first- and third-person narratives as fast paced and turbulent as the characters' lives. In each of these nine selections, mostly female protagonists with unusual names such as Peachy Pie, Tuck, Tweetie, La, Pixie, and Pony experience the highs and lows of adolescence. La longs for acceptance from her peers as she struggles with her mother's suicide. Tuck goes in search of her father and discovers that her mother's live-in female lover is actually her father with a sex change. The lives of many of these youthful characters seem devoid of nurturing adults. The peer-to-peer world in which they live is often crude, cruel, and sad, with harsh slang, casual sex, drugs, and drinking. Deeply disturbing and touching at the same time, this book captures teen characters who live only in the present and often appear not to have or desire any future. Well-written stories for a mature YA audience that radiate empathy, pithiness, and a vibrant irreverence.‘Carol Schene, Taunton Public Schools, MA
Writing with the same sense of wonder that gives such magic to Weetzie Bat and her other novels, Block turns out nine short stories that share a similar theme. Here, as in her previous work, the author sets about deflating the oppositions that most people either reinforce or invent in order to distance themselves from others: carefree child/knowing adult; straight/gay; black/white; male/female. In one of the most ambitious entries, "Dragons in Manhattan," a girl with two mothers decides to find her father and, after traveling from New York to California, learns that one of the "mothers" is in fact her father, a transsexual. Throughout, eros and love receive modulated but frank tribute. The roses, camellias and jacarandas of Block's lush prose style scent these works with a heady perfume; the disadvantage here has to do with her manipulation of the short story genre. Atmosphere is built at the expense of momentum, and the collection as a whole, while still superior to most YA writing, doesn't achieve the heights of the author's best fiction. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)
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