Dangerous Angels

An omnibus containing the first five Weetzie Bat novels, which I'll review separately below:

Weetzie Bat:

This one was far better than I remembered. This was my fourth reading, and I enjoyed it as much now as I did the first time. Block is a daring, unconventional author who manages to evoke a wonderful sense of feel and place by layering scenes. The story unfolds in a series of short bursts, each of which builds upon all the others to tell this beautiful, if somewhat disjointed, tale.

I highly recommend this, but it's definitely not for everyone. Block's writing is disjointed, and it can be difficult to get a sense of the story's chronology. She also disregards many technical rules in order to create particular effects. Those with an show more interest in surreal stories and magical realism are most likely to enjoy this. People who prefer their books a bit more linear and grounded probably won't like it. (4 stars)

Witch Baby:

I'd read this twice before, and while I found it interesting enough it never really spoke to me. It did this time through, and in a big way. I think I'm finally in the perfect place to really understand Witch Baby.

Block does a wonderful job of fleshing out this misunderstood soul who feels like an outsider within her own family. Witch Baby's situation came alive for me. I could feel the tension between her and the others, and I could see what drove her to act as she did. The book was a beautiful portrait not only of this one character but of unconventional family life as a whole. I found it deeply affecting.

It affected me on such a personal level, in fact, that I'm not sure I can write a proper review for it. Suffice it to say that it meant a lot to me. The book finally clicked. (4 stars)

Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys:

While I enjoyed Witch Baby quite a bit more the third time through, Cherokee still didn't really do it for me. The book is much more linear than the previous two; there are clearly defined scenes that flow into one another with a definite sense of chronology, compared to the fragmentary approach Block used in the first books. There's quite a lot of buildup, and the metaphors are more obvious. It made for an enjoyable read, but not a truly affecting one. My favourite thing about Block is the way that she layers events and lets the reader determine what they mean to her. I didn't feel as though this book allowed me to become as involved as I did with Weetzie Bat or Witch Baby, and my enjoyment suffered because of it.

I sound like I didn't enjoy it. I did. It just suffers in comparison to the rest of the series. (3.5 stars)

Missing Angel Juan:

The story has a wonderful immediacy. Block uses first person present tense, which draws the reader straight into Witch Baby’s head and lets her live the story alongside the protagonist. There’s some gorgeous imagery as Witch Baby wanders the streets of New York, following Angel Juan’s trial and hobnobbing with her ghostly almost-grandfather. I couldn’t put it down the first time through. I felt everything Witch Baby felt. I went everywhere she went. Her search became my own. I emerged from the book in tears, certain that this was my favourite of the Weetzie Bat books.

I still gloried in the imagery this time through, but I found it difficult to sink all the way in. I’d be hard into the story, then a stray idea would shove me right back out again. Block gets rather abstract at times; when you’re involved with the story, it’s easy to glide right over these bits, but when you’re hovering slightly above the action they come across as much more vague and distanced.

Perhaps this is the sort of story that means more when you don’t know how it ends. Since I already knew where Witch Baby’s quest would lead here, I didn’t have that desperate need to see my worst fears confirmed or denied. Or perhaps I’ve reread it at the wrong time. Either way, it didn’t mean as much to me this time through. I could appreciate Witch Baby’s journey in an intellectual sense, but she didn’t speak to me as she once did. (3.5 stars)

Baby Be-Bop:

This one still did.

It's just gorgeous. Block's very best books illuminate her characters' inner lives in such a way that the reader can instantly relate to them, and I think this might be the best one of all.

There's so much to love. Dirk is an easy character to relate to; while not every reader will have dealt with the same issues he tackles here, I doubt there are many people who couldn't relate to his desire to find acceptance and love. Block handles these themes beautifully, and she dresses the whole package up in some of the nicest imagery around. Her vision of Los Angeles is a treat, as always, and some does some amazing things with Dirk's family stories.

I can't recommend it highly enough. And since it's a prequel, you don't have to have read the rest of the series in order to get something out of it. (4.5 stars)

Longer reviews of both Missing Angel Juan and Baby Be-Bop are available on my blog, Stella Matutina. show less

I love-love-loved this. It made me feel all hoppity and happy. I am sorry I didn't read these stories when they first came out, and I'm almost sorry that I'll never be able tore ad them again for the first time.
Block takes stories and distils them down to their essence, slight images and words that build something magical. There is no filler here, just story.
These fairy tales don't end with happily ever after, they end with life - life that will be happy and sad, easy and difficult, but life that has to be lived. Again and again we see love, between families, friends, lovers, and the risks we have to take to experience love, and the joys and pain it can bring.
Just splendid.

Very impressed. Manages to maintain a fairytale structure while being both dark and relevant for its time. If the mandate of a children's book is to instruct children about life in a whimsical manner that both insulates the child from the horror it is explaining and maintain a certain joy with life, than this book (or set of books) very much reaches its goal.

It will be a book I keep in mine for a child; as someone who would like them to understand the concept of AIDS, of homosexuality, of the pleasures and dangers of sex, it is definitely a book I would try to pass off to a beloved child at the right age.

Complaints? Not many fair ones. There is a subtext that eventually one will discover the ones they love, that there is an inherent show more knowledge and awareness of that love, that there are external forces, some supernatural, some metaphor, that are actively on your side. The pessimist in me scoffs at that promise, though it conflicts in what I've said above. I fully admit that perhaps my tune would be different had this book and others of its kind infected me at a young age :P show less

Five books from the Weetzie Bat series rolled into one volume. What a treat! Although I’d read the first three books previously, it was great to read them as one cohesive piece. As I read, I remembered what a delightfully unique writer Ms. Block is. The language of these books pulls you into a world in which anything can happen, whether you imagine it or not.

The whimsy and joy of Weetzie Bat brought me quickly to a magical realm of reality by the joyful and pain-filled lives of the characters. In the end we are blessed with a vision of what a family can be.

Granted these stories won’t be for every reader. You must form an agreement with the author to suspend all previous assumptions about life and go along for the ride, trusting that show more she knows what she’d doing. And I believe that she does. These are stories from the heart, and if you look beneath the surface of what could be construed as child neglect in the real world, you feel the love that the members of this family have for one another and realize that this isn't the real world. Each of the characters is searching for his or her place in the universe, just as each young adult reader is. Perhaps that is the appeal.

This is the kind of book that people will love or hate, will “get” or shake their heads in puzzlement, will praise or condemn. show less

This is a book which you will either love to pieces or find intensely aggravating. I adored it. It's a compendium of books that deal with Weetzie Bat, her boyfriend Secret Agent Man, and their extended kooky family. I love the quirkiness of the characters and the lush language Block uses to describe their surroundings. I read this as an adult, but I would have been utterly thrilled if I had received this as a teen ager.

This is the collection of the Weezie Bat Books all into one book. I picked this up because it sounded like an interesting urban fantasy; that wasn't really what it was.

This book follows Weezie Bat's family. Each book is done from a different character's point of view. More than anything the books are about facing the difficulties of growing up and how a person's personality can affect that. For the most part the book takes place in LA. There are odd bits of magic thrown in at rare points; a genie shows up to grant wishes, Baby Witch tours New York city with her dead grandfather. These fantastical happenings are rarities in the stories though; they are written in a way that leaves you wondering if the character really did run into show more something magical or are they just hallucinating?

What makes this book different and special is the way it is written. Block throws in so many crazy ways of describing things that it will leave your mind reeling. She tries to explain the taste of a picture, the sound of a smell, the texture of a sight. The novels are decadent purely because of the descriptions...there is so much glitter, so many feathers, petals falling, raindrops touching. With her descriptions Block turns LA into a fantasy world where one doesn't really exist. She uses this over-describing to give her characters personality. Weezie Bat is full of sunshine and everything she touches seems to turn to gold. Baby Witch is dark and chaotic and when she tells the story it is in shades of grey.

Overall I thought these were unique and interesting stories. They weren't what I expected. The characters didn't have a goal or a plot to follow, outside of obtaining their own happiness. Unfortunately like a really rich dessert, the decadent descriptions and frivolous characters started to be too much. By the end of the book, I just wanted to be done with it. The lack of a plot, the characters inability to make anything other than rash emotional decisions, and the amount of time it takes for Block to describe anything started to bug me. I know that these characters are supposed to be teaching life lessons, but they just seemed very immature. And though I enjoyed the novelty of Block's writing in the beginning, by the last story I was sick of it. I would imagine Block's books are something best taken in small doses.

Will I read another book by Block? Probably not, unless I am in the mood for something over the top, decadent, and wandering. show less

This is actually 5 books in one, and the quality of each book varies quite a lot. Unfortunately the book starts off with the weakest stories, I nearly gave up right at the beginning. I'm glad I didn't though, because the last two stories are great and I closed the book wanting more. The Los Angeles that Block describes is dazzling and magical, and her stories of love and longing are uplifting. It takes a while to get used to her writing style and you have to learn to read between the lines a little. I think I would have loved this as a teenager.

I'd rank the stories like this: Missing Angel Juan > Baby Be-Bop > Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys = Witch Baby = Weetzie Bat.