Book Cover Photo Source, Barnes and Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Weetzie-Bat/Francesca-Lia-Block/e/9780060736255/?itm=1&usri=weetzie+bat, accessed October 23, 2009.
Bibliography
Block, Francesca Lia. 1989. WEETZIE BAT. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
ISBN 0060205369
Critical Analysis
When I first read Weetzie Bat I closed the book and said to myself, "that was weird." So, I read it again. This book is one of the few that I have read that I really wasn't sure what to make of it, except that I liked it.
The heroine in the book is Weetzie Bat. Weeizie's parents, Charlie and Brandy-Lynn Bat, are unhappily divorced and often retreat into a world of booze and drugs. We find out early on that Weetzie's best friend Dirk, is gay. "I'm gay," Dirk said. "Who, what, when, where, how--well, not how," Weetzie said. "It doesn't matter one bit, honey-honey," she said, giving him a hug. To which Dirk replies, "But you know I'll always love you the best and think that you are a beautiful, sexy girl." "Now we can duck hunt together,"Weetzie said, taking his hand. Together the two friends weave an outrageous web of Hollywood illusion and stuanch reality, but the one thing they both wish for most is someone to love. The book is full of magic, from the genie, who grants Weetzie's wishes, to the vicious witch Vixanne, who visits the family three times. There are beauties and beasts, castles and Cinderella-like transformations. Through these adventures Weetzie and Dirk manage to fall in love, Dirk with Duck, and Weetzie with My Secret Agent Lover Man, move in together, and have a baby. "I don't know about happily ever after......but I do know about happily," Weetzie Bat thinks at the end of the story.
The author of WEETZIE BAT, Francesca Lia Block, grew up in Los Angeles where she and her friends were enchanted by Hollywood. One day while driving through Laurel Canyon with friends in a blue vintage Mustang convertible, they passed a "punk princess with spikey bleached hair, a very pink 50's prom dress, and cowboy boots." This image stuck in her mind as the "spirit of Los Angeles," and later when she spotted another blonde pixie wearing big pink Harlequin sunglasses and driving a pink Pinto with the license plate "WEETZIE" her character was born. The book WEETZIE BAT was written in 1989. The subject matter it deals with, sex, homosexuality, drugs, and the unconventional family, are all familiar in the YA genre, but are told in such a way that you feel as if you are hearing it for the first time. The book won the Phoenix Award in 2009, which is given to a book that failed to win a major award at it's publication 20 years before.
Review Excerpts
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: "A brief, off-beat tale that has great charm, poigancy, and touches of fantasy, Weetzie, now 23, is a child of hollywood who hated high school, but loves the momories of Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin, plastic palm tree wallets, and the roller-skating waitresses at Tiny Naylor's.....Nobody understands her, least of all her bi-coastal divorced parents, until she meets Dirk, who takes her slammdancing at the hot clubs in L.A. in his red '55 pontiac. When he tells her he's gay, they decide to go "duck hunting" together."
No comments:
Post a Comment