Review: Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block
A dreamy fairy tale, stripped to the bone and fed on a steady diet of glitter and speed. There is something charming about the story of Weetzie Bat and her little cobbled-together family of LA weirdos, but I didn’t fully engage with it. Something about the pared down writing and undeveloped characters made it hard to connect with. Had I been a teenager in the 80s, maybe this would have been a revelation; it’s certainly different than your “average” YA story, if there is such a thing.
I do think Block’s treatment of her gay characters was rather wonderful, in that she really didn’t treat them any differently than the straight ones. Dirk could maybe be called the GBF, but he isn’t sidelined like the stock gay friend usually is, and his love for Weetzie is deep and genuine friendship. They are a family, with their lovers and their children and many, many dogs.
I like the style and the strangeness of the story- how it combines the magic of a fairy tale and the banal tragedy of real life. The surface is pretty; I just wish it went a little deeper.
Cross-posted at Goodreads: Weetzie Bat review
