Part myth, part dream, and all enchantment, Francesca Lia Block has blessed her glitter fans with another darkly fantastical tale of Los Angeles, "a city of magicians, movie queens, love-struck clowns." On this particular magic carpet ride, Block follows the sad footsteps of Echo, a Hollywood baby born of a dark-souled artist father and an effervescent mother whose impossible beauty likens her to an angel. Echo, who believes that "the only things I know how to do well are shoplift, kiss and dance," feels excluded from her extraordinary parents' perfect love for each other. So she sets out alone to try and fill the cavernous void inside. During her travels, Echo meets a broken angel, iron-pumping vampires, and the fairy daughter of a rock star. Are these figures real? Echo believes in them, and so will the reader, as Block's melodious prose leaves no choice but to accept them as true. Echo finally finds her own true "love-boy" when she learns to look for love within instead of searching for validation through her drugs of choice: food, sex, or doomed relationships. Told in a myriad of voices that belong to Echo, her parents, lovers, and friends, these interconnected short stories are a visual feast of intoxicatingly hip images where the city of Los Angeles is as much a character as the outrageous people that populate its movie-star mansions. Echo's story of salvation will appeal not only to eyeliner-wearing club kids, but to any older teen who's ever felt insecure and lonely in a world full of kissing couples and Hallmark holidays. (Ages 13 and older)
--Jennifer Hubert
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