Book Review: Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block

Title: Dangerous Angels: The Weeztie Bat Books (Weetzie Bat, Witch Baby, Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys, Missing Angel Juan, and Baby Be-Bop)
Author: Francesca Lia Block
Published: New York: HarpersCollins Publishers, 1998 (1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995)
Page Count: 478
Total Page Count: 35,323
Text Number: 101
Read For: my own enjoyment, checked out from the library
Short review: Generations of young women and their lovers and friends grow up surrounded by genies, by love, and by the magical world of urban Los Angeles. Dangerous Angels is a compilation of the original Weetzie Bat book series, five novels that make up stories two generations—their love stories, deaths, births, and artistic adventures. The text is vivid, rich with sensual description and the hipster-cool slang that surrounds Weetzie's family. The magical-realist style intertwines angels, genies, and spirits with real-world issues of finding and nurturing love, having sex, creating identity and independence, being gay, and coping with death. The result is a remarkably engrossing, readable, and magical writing style that brings to life both Los Angeles and the characters, and deals with difficult, even controversial issues, that are rarely found in other young-adult books. I very highly recommend it.

( Long review. )

Review posted here at Amazon.com.

Book Review: The Robber Bride by Margret Atwood

Title: The Robber Bride
Author: Margret Atwood
Published: New York: Doubleday, 1993
Page Count: 466
Total Page Count: 35,789
Text Number: 102
Read For: my own enjoyment, checked out from the library
Short review: Roz, Charis, and Tony have been brought together by Zenia: a beautiful, intelligent, manipulative woman that deceives all of them in order to pluck their husbands and lovers out from under their noises. Zenia enjoys the hunt and the chase; once she wins these men, she throws them away. When Zenia returns from the dead, some time after a funeral that all three of them attended, the women recount their life stories and what Zenia did to them and then search for ways to come to terms with her--and to beat her at her own game. Written in Atwood's distinctive writing style, rich with characterization and intricate description, the text is compelling, weaving through time from the present (Zenia's return) back to the past (the women's life stories and what happened to their husbands) and then back to the future (coping with Zenia's return). However, unlike some of Atwood's other novels, this one lacks staying power. The characters are realistic and unique, and Zenia's impact raises some pertinent questions on a range of subjects from life-changing events to women's relationships with men and with other women. The three protagonists, however, split up the book and limit the amount of time that the author can spend with each one, making each story a little more shallow and a little less meaningful; the topic, as well, lacks the relevance and import found in novels like The Handmaid's Tale. The book is a good read, but is far from my favorite Atwood novel and I only moderately recommend it.

( Long review. )

Review posted here at Amazon.com.