(Image credit: www.powells.com)Block, Francesca Lia. Weetzie Bat. NY: Harper Collins, 1989.
A punk laced fairy tale set in the City of Angels. Weetzie may have the help of the genie of the lamp, but she'll need more than that to live happily ever after.
Tooling around Hollywood with her best friend Dirk in his slinkster-cool car, Weetzie Bat searches for love and dreams about living happily ever after. But ambitions change and ever afters are never guaranteed and just living happily for one moment takes a lot of assembling.
Will it all come together for Weetzie Bat and Dirk and the colorful cast of characters that populate this hipster genie in a bottle type tale? Follow them as they go "duck hunting"; each looking for their one true love. Witness Weetzie Bat as she tries to pull her father back from grey New York to the sunlit boulevards of Hollywood. Try to follow the logic when Dirk and Duck, her two gay friends, convince themselves and Weetzie that if they all sleep together and make a baby, Weetzie's Secret Agent Lover Man (who doesn't want to bring a child into this world) will come around.
This mythological melodrama is like jazz on a page. All syncopated rhythms, ensemble casting, and the spontaneity of Weetzie's improvisations. But for all its' complexity, there is the simple message of love hidden amongst the crazy swings of pitch and timbre.
YALSA 100 Best Books 1950-2000. Parents' Choice Award.
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