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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Francesca Lia Block, whose Weetzie Bat novels have often been called pop fairy tales, here turns to the real thing for some very different imaginings of Snow White, Thumbelina, Cinderella, Rose Red and Rose White, and other tales. Block's stories are more resonance than retelling, fevered dreams behind which the outlines of the traditional tales move fitfully like figures glimpsed now and then through a summer fog. Veiled references to Block's own Los Angeles appear in the twisty house of the seven dwarfs built into a canyon like Laurel or Topanga, the redwood forest on a seaside cliff through which Beauty travels to her Beast, the tree-darkened canyon houses with French doors that open onto exuberant neglected gardens lush with irises and roses. In these evocations Bluebeard becomes an aging blue-haired producer, Sleeping Beauty pricks her arm with a heroin needle, Red Riding Hood's wolf is a lecherous stepfather, and the Snow Queen is a sex goddess who lives in a marble mansion with her boy toy, possibly in Beverly Hills. Sensuous images enrich these languid and darkly ironic visions: jasmine-scented night gardens, leopard couches with velvet pillows, luscious food flavored with mint, coconut milk, or pomegranate sauce, cool candlelit baths. As always, Block's poetic allegories of adolescence are strikingly original and a bit dangerous, a feast for connoisseurs of YA fiction and savvy older teens. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell
From Publishers Weekly
Block's (Weetzie Bat) contemporary novels have invariably borrowed elements from classic fairy tales; this time, the author pulls a switch. Setting out to revisit nine fairy tales, she fills her stories with gritty, even headline-grabbing issues. "Charm," for example, features a Sleeping Beauty who embraces the needleDbecause it delivers heroin. In "Bones," a serial killer who names himself Bluebeard is an L.A. hotshot; he throws huge parties and from among the guests selects his victims, rootless girls whose disappearance will attract no attention. One or two stories strain for effect ("Glass," loosely related to Cinderella, tends to belabor the storytelling prowess of its protagonist, whose glass shoes are "made from your words, the stories you have told like a blower with her torch forming the thinnest, most translucent sheets of light out of what was once sand"). But even these entries wield power, and the collection as a whole is close to intoxicating. Rendered in Block's inimitably lush prose, these works are heady, like the thick fragrance of the redolent gardens and perfect roses that figure here. The darkness of these conflicts and subjects proves the strength of the magic she describes: the transfiguring power of love. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Francesca Lia Block, whose Weetzie Bat novels have often been called pop fairy tales, here turns to the real thing for some very different imaginings of Snow White, Thumbelina, Cinderella, Rose Red and Rose White, and other tales. Block's stories are more resonance than retelling, fevered dreams behind which the outlines of the traditional tales move fitfully like figures glimpsed now and then through a summer fog. Veiled references to Block's own Los Angeles appear in the twisty house of the seven dwarfs built into a canyon like Laurel or Topanga, the redwood forest on a seaside cliff through which Beauty travels to her Beast, the tree-darkened canyon houses with French doors that open onto exuberant neglected gardens lush with irises and roses. In these evocations Bluebeard becomes an aging blue-haired producer, Sleeping Beauty pricks her arm with a heroin needle, Red Riding Hood's wolf is a lecherous stepfather, and the Snow Queen is a sex goddess who lives in a marble mansion with her boy toy, possibly in Beverly Hills. Sensuous images enrich these languid and darkly ironic visions: jasmine-scented night gardens, leopard couches with velvet pillows, luscious food flavored with mint, coconut milk, or pomegranate sauce, cool candlelit baths. As always, Block's poetic allegories of adolescence are strikingly original and a bit dangerous, a feast for connoisseurs of YA fiction and savvy older teens. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell
From Publishers Weekly
Block's (Weetzie Bat) contemporary novels have invariably borrowed elements from classic fairy tales; this time, the author pulls a switch. Setting out to revisit nine fairy tales, she fills her stories with gritty, even headline-grabbing issues. "Charm," for example, features a Sleeping Beauty who embraces the needleDbecause it delivers heroin. In "Bones," a serial killer who names himself Bluebeard is an L.A. hotshot; he throws huge parties and from among the guests selects his victims, rootless girls whose disappearance will attract no attention. One or two stories strain for effect ("Glass," loosely related to Cinderella, tends to belabor the storytelling prowess of its protagonist, whose glass shoes are "made from your words, the stories you have told like a blower with her torch forming the thinnest, most translucent sheets of light out of what was once sand"). But even these entries wield power, and the collection as a whole is close to intoxicating. Rendered in Block's inimitably lush prose, these works are heady, like the thick fragrance of the redolent gardens and perfect roses that figure here. The darkness of these conflicts and subjects proves the strength of the magic she describes: the transfiguring power of love. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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