Magical Realism

Teen Spirit by Francesca Lia Block
on February 4, 2014
Genres: fantasy, Magical Realism
Pages: 240
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Barnes & Noble, Buy on Books & Books
Goodreads

Francesca Lia Block, critically acclaimed author of Weetzie Bat, brings this eerie and redemptive ghost story to life with her signature, poetic prose. It's perfect for fans of supernatural stories with a touch of romance like the Beautiful Creatures series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

After Julie's grandmother passes away, she is forced to move across town to the not-so-fancy end of Beverly Hills and start over at a new school. The only silver lining to the perpetual dark cloud that seems to be following her? Clark—a die-hard fan of Buffy and all things Joss Whedon, who is just as awkward and damaged as she is. Her kindred spirit.

When the two try to contact Julie's grandmother with a Ouija board, they make contact with a different spirit altogether. The real kind. And this ghost will do whatever it takes to come back to the world of the living.

Francesca Lia Block's latest young adult novel is a haunting work about family, loss, love, and redemption.

Teen Spirit by Francesca Lia Block
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I first picked up a Francesca Lia Block at 16 years old it was at a time that I felt lost and felt those typical teenage feelings like no one understood me. (This book brought me back to my teenage self so much that I was even inspired to catch a few Buffy the Vampire episodes for old times on Netflix…will explain as to why later on:) ) Block has the remarkable ability to make me see the beauty in my life and to see the beauty in myself even through all my quirks and eccentricities! Reading the book “Teen Spirit” resurfaced those feelings for me again. Francesca Lia Block’s writing style has always been prevalent in all her books but this book, in particular, reminded me of her Dangerous Angels series in so many parts of the book. After reading this book I think that Francesca Lia Block should continue a series and show Julie in college and so on. The story was so entertaining and the characters were so complex and intriguing that I could not get enough!

The story begins with Julie…

Julie is an awkward teenager with a pension for vintage clothes who is absolutely content with her life living in her 1940’s Spanish style house with her mom and grandma. Her mom is a writer for a television show and her grandmother is Julie’s rock and she is always the person that Julie can confide in when it comes to her high school woes, boys and their common love for vintage clothing. Julie takes comfort with her simple life until things don’t become as simple as they used to be. It all started when her grandmother is just having a conversation with Julie and she is about to reveal something important and then without warning Julie’s grandmother passes away in front of her. Julie and her mother are completely shocked and lost without her and things take a turn for the worse after the grandmother’s passing. Julie’s mother loses her writing job and they are forced to foreclose on their house and move to an apartment and Julie had to change schools.

Julie slowly gets deeper into her depression and realizes that she can’t function in her life without her grandma. Julie doesn’t even have the support from her own mother who is going into online dating and begins to date a loser middle aged guy in a band with a pension for “fishnet stockings.” Julie is desperate to see her grandma and find a way to communicate with her. Then once she starts her new school she meets a goofy guy named Clark whose trademark staple is wearing zany hats such as moose hats, monkey hats, porkpie hats, obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he enjoys eating “kicharee.”

As Julie gets to know Clark she discovers there is more to Clark than his wacky hats and his culinary talents. She shares with him her loss of her grandmother and expresses a desire to contact her grandmother. As soon as Julie mentions the ouijia board to Clark he is reluctant to do it with her and tries to keep her away from it. Soon enough Julie finds out his real reasons for staying away from the ouija board…

Julie evokes an unexpected spirit and therefore begins a twisted love triangle that involves Clark and a boy named Grant who claims to be Clark’s twin brother. Grant is the bad boy version of Clark and is more of the sexy 4.0 version of Clark minus the nerdy hats…

One of the main aspects of the book that really intrigued me were the supernatural scenes such as the auras that Julie had the ability to see with each person she met, the rituals, the glass bottles of flower-and-gem essences, and not to mention the aura ring that Julie was instructed to wear that resembled a mood ring which is something that I have always looooved to wear as a kid.

This book brought back memories for me of when I first began to read her books and her writing of this book made me realize why I love Francesca Lia Block so much! Teen Spirit was everything that I hoped for in a supernatural read and more! I felt like I was on a journey right there with Clark and Julie and I was loving every minute of it! I loved how Francesca Lia Block wrote the characters of Julie and Clark because they were easy to love but they were real teenagers with their flaws, insecurities, and angst to go along with it. She delved into the characters stories so fluidly and I was rooting for Clark and Julie to finally have their own happy ending every step of the way! The most important lesson that I learned from this book is that death is something we shouldn’t dwell over and obsess about because our beautiful and complicated lives are right in our very own fingertips…

View all my reviews

Love in the Time of Global Warming #1 by Francesca Lia Block
Published by Henry Holt and Co. on August 27, 2013
Genres: fantasy, Magical Realism
Pages: 240
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Barnes & Noble, Buy on Books & Books
Goodreads

Her life by the sea in ruins, Pen has lost everything in the Earth Shaker that all but destroyed the city of Los Angeles. She sets out into the wasteland to search for her family, her journey guided by a tattered copy of Homer’s Odyssey. Soon she begins to realize her own abilities and strength as she faces false promises of safety, the cloned giants who feast on humans, and a madman who wishes her dead. On her voyage, Pen learns to tell stories that reflect her strange visions, while she and her fellow survivors navigate the dangers that lie in wait. In her signature style, Francesca Lia Block has created a world that is beautiful in its destruction and as frightening as it is lovely. At the helm is Pen, a strong heroine who holds hope and love in her hands and refuses to be defeated.

Catfairy Booktape

“My pink house-no longer mine-stands on the edge of nowhere like a rose in a Salvador Dali surrealist desert landscape….”

Catfairy Thoughts

In high school I was forced to read and analyze “The Odyssey” and let me tell you, it was the most boring and drawn out piece of literature that I have read in my entire life. There are many pieces of literature I appreciated and fell in love with as my required reading in high school such as “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, The House on Mango Street and of course one of my favorites of all time “The Great Gatsby” but “The Odyssey” was definitely not one of them! (I got to the point that I couldn’t take it anymore and read the cliff notes version known as Sparks Notes!) But knowing that my beloved author Francesca Lia Block was coming out with a modern twist of “The Odyssey” influenced me to give it a read and let’s just say it definitely didn’t leave me with the glazed over feeling that I got when reading it in high school. And thankfully I didn’t need Sparks Notes this time… 🙂

“Then I see a butterfly dart in front of my face; it’s like the one that came to my window. It circles back and around my head, then flies forth to where a lime green VW bus is parked in the wasteland. I run toward it, open the door, and jump inside. Men are running out of the house, chasing me, howling. I jam the key into the ignition and turn it. The bus jolts forward, careening over rubble and debris. Taking me away into this severed world.”

Catnopsis

The whole time as I was reading this book I felt like I was transported into a swirly and epic fairy tale. The story begins with the main character of Pen who sees life through art paintings, a storyteller who has visions of her life and other people, an avid book reader and an awkward teenager trying to make sense of her sexuality. Pen has lost her entire family due to the Earth Shaker that has left the city of Los Angeles into an utter wasteland.The only thing that is left for her is her lovely but dilapidated pink house that was up for foreclosure but now that doesn’t mean much anymore because of the Earth Shaker. Penelope sees a single Monarch butterfly which is the only sign that there is still life and most importantly still a small shred of hope.

In the story, a mysterious man whose identity is finally revealed at the end of the story comes into Pen’s pink house and gives her a chance of escape to look for her family. He leaves her a VW bus and a chocolate bar which she gladly receives (I don’t blame her.) and that’s how Pen’s fantastical and perilous journey finally begins. Later on her drive, she discovers a grocery store that she used to go to that is still filled with supplies and she encounters one of the giants. She has a pair of scissors and stabs one of Kronen’s giants in the eye.

The character of Kronen is what you would call a “mad scientist” who Pen’s father worked for. Kronen created these giants that were unusually large that it caused sheer devastation to Los Angeles which is how the Earth Shaker started in the first place.

“The world might be gone but somehow, here with Hex, it feels like when we open our eyes it will all come back, so much better than before.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be an epic fairy tale without meeting some life-changing friends along the way. Pen meets a boy named Hex with an inked tattoo that says “Heartless” and Pen slowly falls for him on her journey. He is a dark character who is a sword-wielding fighter who feels as if he is devoid of love but realizes in the end that love is all there is left especially when the world is gone. Pen also meets Ash who has “lighter than-a-paper-bag skin and almond green eyes” and who has a life-changing gift of bringing music to escape the havoc of his surroundings. And finally, she meets Ez who is named after Ezra Pound. Ez has a love for art and has an obsession with anything related to sugar. Ez has always felt like an outsider especially because he struggles with his sexuality and has an attraction to sketching male nudes. This leads Ez to form a special bond and connection with Ash that he has never had before.

Pen gets to know many people who try to halt her journey like the giants lurking around Los Angeles, a soap star named Circe who is described as looking like a “pre-Raphaelite Waterhouse painting” who makes them stay with her forever and eat cake or is the cake really an illusion? And of course, the story wouldn’t be The Odyssey without the infamous “sirens” who are described looking like one of those surgically enhanced Beverly Hills housewives on Bravo.

…”Wasn’t that what art was, after all? Desperate artists telling stories, drawing images, in order to keep some part of the goddess alive and close?”

Since I am an aspiring art history buff myself there were so many descriptions of whimsical paintings interlaced within the story like Salvador Dali, Monet and new artists that I am now newly introduced to from reading this book. (Thank you FLB<3.) Some amazing artists that were described in the book are Elihi Vedder, Odilon Redon, Francis Bacon and Edwin Romanzo Elmer.

Final Catfairy Thoughts

The style and design of the book are one of the most beautiful designs of FLB books that I have read. The decorations of the Monarch butterflies in every chapter made me think of them as “fairy butterflies” which is what they probably are<3 Every word I read in this book was read carefully and I fell in love again with FLB’s usual descriptive and captivating poetic writing style. All the characters were described with such magical minute detail that I am able to see them in my mind and that’s one of the biggest reasons why I love FLB’s writing. Towards the end of the story, I didn’t want to stop reading about Pen’s journey and wanted the book to be longer. (Luckily there is a sequel!)

“Were on the road to nowhere…

I found it funny that throughout the story I had the Talking Heads song “Road to Nowhere” stuck in my head. I was enamored with every turn of the page in this story and even though the characters felt like they were on a “Road to Nowhere” in the end they all found their destiny and most importantly they found themselves in each other which is more meaningful than the world crumbling around them.

FIVE CHARLIE CHUCHI STARS!

FOLLOW ME @charliechuchi

VIEW MY PINTEREST BOARD FOR LOVE IN THE TIME OF GLOBAL WARMING!

https://www.pinterest.com/catfairyreadsya/love-in-the-time-of-global-warming/