From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up—These poems traverse the steep climb from girlhood to womanhood while unearthing the hard truths hidden within this journey. Divided into three parts—"years at the asylum," "in the hair of the toxic blonde," and "love poems for girls"—the collection touches on anorexia, self-love and loathing, parental relationships, superficiality, losing one's virginity, rape, and love and loss. Block celebrates womanhood, but not in a bubblegum, girl-power way. Plathian symbols abound, from pervasive father issues to Nazi comparisons to insane asylums, real and imagined. The poems feel simultaneously autobiographical and universal. While the death of the narrator's father in "a myth of love for girls" colors her search for a partner, the universal struggle of women to escape or find their father's image in future relationships is aptly captured. The final selections cross into the territory of life lessons learned well beyond the teen experience and perhaps ring too much like motherly advice, but the raw authenticity of the narrator's voice throughout overshadows any later departure. Teenage girls, especially sophisticated, angst-filled poetry readers, will devour this insightful and powerful collection.—
Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Block once again mixes characters from fairy tale and myth—vampires, mermaids, fairies—in this collection of urban poems that contrast menace and beauty; innocence and heartbroken experience; despair and bold confidence. As in her recent story collection, Blood Roses (2008), the works frankly discuss body image, sex, and love, and subjects that stretch into adult life, with poems about marriage, divorce, and motherhood. Luxuriant imagery of roses, feathers, and glitter contrast with dark, menacing scenarios of girls and women threatened by men and by their own brutal judgment, with vibrant, sometimes cruel Los Angeles as a constant backdrop. Eating disorders figure into many poems, as does advice on finding joy. There is hope in the beautiful title poem, which speaks about the limitless freedom that can come with self-acceptance, and young women will easily relate to the many selections about teen naïveté and restlessness: “just us girls all in shiny pink / waiting for something to happen.” A stirring exploration of female suffering and empowerment, this will attract Block’s adult readers, too. Grades 11-12. --Gillian Engberg
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
