I've become rather disenchanted with Ms. Block ever since I was older than the average age of her main characters (16-17). I know when I was that age I found the glittering adjective laden descriptions of southern California and the otherworldly characters magical and wondrous. But after 20 I really thought _enough already_. That being said, I found Violet and Claire a nice change. It drew me back in to an appreciation of Ms. Block despite my cynicism. It still has all those things, which is good, because she has her own unique style and it would be a Francesca Lia Block book without those things. But she keeps the adjectives to a more reasonable level and actually gets some storytelling done rather than the extended neon dioramas most of her books seem to be. And I liked how much the book focused on friendship - love interests came and went, it was essentially about the friendship between the two very different girls. The book still has faults, but I liked it more than I thought I would when I bought it. ( )

Violet and Claire is the story of 2 girls who are very different but best friends. Here is a
quote from the book that captures them perfectly and gives you a great taste of Block's
writing: "…like shadow and light; her rants my raves; her dark hair, my blond; black
dresses, white. She a purple-black African-violet-dark butterfly and I a white moth." "…we
were photo negatives of each other, together making the perfect image of a girl."
Violet dreams of making movies and Claire believes she is a descendant of faeries who
were killed off and sent to hiding underground by the patriarchy. Violet is power and
ambition and Claire is beauty and innocence. Together things start looking up for them as
they have found someone that they make sense to in a world where they are outsiders.
Once they loose touch, things spiral out of control through a strange circus like climax.
Not to give anything away, but you do get a happy Hollywood ending, which seems so
fitting given that the book is written like a movie. The book is also written from alternating
perspectives, which gives you a glimpse into the light and the dark of each of their worlds. ( )