Book 1 in the Weetzie Bat series
AUTHOR: Francesca Lia Block
PUBLISHED 1989
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Magical Realism
PREMISE: A girl's life takes shape as she finds a genie.
MY THOUGHTS: This book was published way back in 1989 so as far as I'm concerned, it's a modern classic. People still talk about it now over twenty-five years later.
I'll be honest I....just don't get it. The prose were lovely but the story was just bizarre, and didn't really seem to have much of a plot. It also was a wee bit dated. I hope nowadays that authors realize that characters wearing Native American headresses, who aren't Native American, are not cool. That is called cultural appropriation. Please, don't do it.
The thing is nowadays, I suspect this book wouldn't register much, because there are a lot of YA books out there that do the things it did. When it was published however, I can see why it made waves. It did a lot of things that back in 1989 you just weren't supposed to talk about. Such as the clear reference to AIDS. For you young ones, in 1989 there was a big stigma surrounding people with AIDS and people refused to talk about it, despite how many people were dying from it. So for this book to mention it at that time...well, it was kind of a big deal.
Personally, I couldn't get into it much. But it is magical realism and magical realism and me don't get along much. However, if you love magical realism and would like to see one of its classics, this is a book to check out.
WHO SHOULD READ: Francesca Lia Block fans, Magical Realism fans
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