Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block | Book Review

(Kind of a trippy cover)

This is a really short book, so my review will also be short.  Last year I read Teen Spirit by Francesca Lia Block, and didn't really care for it.  Someone commented on my Goodreads review and told me that they agreed that Teen Spirit wasn't great, but that I shouldn't give up on Ms. Block.  I should try the Dangerous Angels series, of which Weetzie Bat is the first.  And who would've guessed?  Weetzie Bat is sooo different from Teen Spirit, in good ways!

Weetzie Bat reads very lyrically.  Almost trippy, like the cover looks.  Almost dream-like.  It actually took me a little bit to get into the story because there's very, very little set-up of setting.  The reader knows that the characters are in LA, but the author doesn't give ages, or much of a description of how the characters look.  Also, all the characters have odd names, like Weetzie or Duck or Witch Baby.  Seriously!  I thought Weetzie and Witch Baby and Duck were nicknames, but we find out throughout the series that these are the characters' real names.

The language in the book is hard to describe.  It reads very stream-of-consciousness, and with a limited point of view.  It reads like a poem or a song.  Like I said, I had a little trouble getting into this first one because I'm not used to this style of writing.  But once I got into it, I was into it.  A quick, beautiful read that I would recommend to older teens.

*I checked out my copy of Weetzie Bat from my public library.