From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Readers who remember Weetzie Bat and My Secret Agent Lover Man's first kiss (a "kiss about apple pie à la mode with the vanilla creaminess melting in the pie heat") from their YA incarnation may be crushed to learn that they've shared no kisses since September 11, 2001. My Secret Agent Lover Man, though Weetzie's long-time lover, "was now just Max"; Weetzie, whom readers first met in 1989's Weetzie Bat, is now 40. As the novel opens, Weetzie packs a small bag and checks herself into a pink hotel in L.A., "seeking the kiss she had lost." There Weetzie embarks on a quest of sorts. She meets Shelley, whose kiss reveals that she is a mermaid and is the first of the title's necklace of kisses. Each kiss injects a bit more enchantment into Weetzie's life. Block carefully construes the kisses as complete in and of themselves. Weetzie never betrays Max; this is a novel of healing. Weetzie's many fans will most appreciate this reunion with the heroine and her Secret Agent Lover Man, Dirk and Duck and many more. But those just meeting Block's whimsical entourage and sparkling prose will also appreciate the book's message: that magic can be found in stolen moments and, in Dirk's words, though "love is a dangerous angel," it's well worth the risk. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The gentle punk fairy-tale series about Weetzie Bat and her Los Angeles friends, lovers, and family broke new YA ground, and author Block has just received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in YA literature. Now Weetzie Bat is 40 and facing a midlife crisis, and so is her boyfriend, Secret Agent Lover Man, who, since 9/11, just sits idly reading the newspaper. She leaves, hoping to find herself, but this time, rather than meditating in the wilderness, she remains in her beloved L.A., moving into the expensive and magical Pink Hotel, where she luxuriates in room service, gets her nails and toenails done, kisses a sushi-eating mermaid, chats to her father's ghost, and gets a necklace of gifts from a diva, an angel, a faun, and more. The self-parody is as wonderful as ever--Weetzie doesn't have to save the world; she can just go shopping--and, as always, the magic is in the detail: wearing her raspberry snakeskin sandals, dipping her roll in olive oil and basil, surreal stuff happens. Sometimes things get a little too "numinous" (Weetzie's favorite word), but the celebration of the silly and the magical in a scary, sad world will appeal to all those once-teen fans who remember Weetzie and, just like her, now need a rewrite. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
