Weetzie Bat

Plot: When Dirk meets Weetzie in high school, they hit it off immediately; they wear the coolest clothes and they drive around Los Angeles in their "slinkster cool" car. They form an unconventional family when Duck and My Secret Agent Lover Man come into the picture. As a family they create movies and then one day, Weetzie decides to have a baby. She has the baby with Duck and Dirk, which upsets My Secret Agent Lover Man, but he gets over it and brings his child, Witch Baby, in order to live with them as well. It's a happy ending for all the characters involved.

Evaluation: When Dirk's grandma Fifi dies, she leaves Weetzie a "golden thing," which Weetzie rubs and a genie comes out, and he grants her three wishes. It's elements like these show more that make the novel fantastical and attracts readers. I enjoyed the fact that all of a sudden she had all these wishes granted and Dirk found the love of his life and she found her own love. The book showed an unconventional family that accepts and supports each other. When Duck runs away because he is overwhelmed by his friend's death, Dirk doesn't give up on him, he searches for his partner and brings him back to the family and continues to love him. Similarly, when Secret Agent Lover Man leaves Weetzie because she decided to have a baby with Duck and Dirk, she still welcomes him back into her life and loves him even though he had an affair that produced a child. Perhaps none of these things would happen in real life, but it's kind of cool to see that Block has created this loving utopia within her novel. It's different and sweet and I think that's what drew me into reading the novel even though it was assigned reading. ;-)

Personally, I enjoyed Block's little details in the story because she painted the characters of Weetzie and Dirk so clearly. For example, they love Jayne Mansfield movies, such as The Girl Can't Help It. The outfits that they wear fascinated me when I read the book. Weetzie wears pink Harlequin sunglasses, an old fifties' taffeta dress covered with poetry written in glitter or dresses made from kids' sheets that have Disney characters on them. I think I want to wear those outfits myself! I loved how Block used tackiness and the styles of old Hollywood to create characters that have original styles - I wanted to meet them.

This novel really went into a direction that I didn't expect. When I first started reading it, I didn't think there would be a magic genie involved. The relationships between the characters are kind and loving, and it almost seems as if the reader is only getting Weetzie's perspective on her life. In other words, maybe she is creating this perfect world for herself in order to protect herself from the outside world, which is filled with sadness. The death of Weetzie's father is a pretty devastating moment for Weetzie, but it shows that she probably isn't acknowledging all the problems in her life. It's quite clear that her father is depressed, but Weetzie doesn't really do anything to save him besides trying to convince him to come back to Hollywood, a place that he hated to begin with. It seems that Weetzie lives a kind of life that has fluffiness and sugar coated happiness just like Hollywood movies, whereas her father didn't view Hollywood in the same vein and was probably more in touch with reality.

I really had never read a book like this before, so I don't know if I can compare it to anything. Some novels are just originals and I think that's probably why Weetzie Bat was snapped up and published rather quickly. I also think I'll probably go on to read the other Weetzie Bat books that are out there because this narrative just fascinated me. show less

5Q 4P

I liked the whimsical quirkiness of the novel (it often poked fun at itself) and enjoyed how each chapter felt like its own short story--it was complete, had tension, and involved a theme. The style of the prose was both engaging and rapid. It felt like dancing to an unfamiliar song and in an unfamiliar style complete with embarrassing trips, confused fumbling, and awkward rhythm.

However, the quirkiness of the story, while charming at moments, can at times be overwhelming and alienating. Scenes in the story where important, life-changing events occur are treated in a shallow rush as if the author is eager to get to the next scene, and Weetzie shrugs off the minor hiccup of trauma with elaborate jazz hands.

Nevertheless, Weetzie show more Bat appeals to readers looking for something different, a lifestyle and character both unique and whimsical with a wise and insightful take on life. A good read for those able to get past its surreal oddness to the gem of life lessons buried within. show less

I read this 30 years ago and did not get it. It was TOO weird for me and I didn't understand why it was getting such laudatory reviews. Now I can see the wild charm of it. It's L.A. life through sparkly rose-colored glasses, written in a tone of childlike wonder. The themes are definitely mature and sometimes dark but there are no graphic passages. In the end, no matter how unconventional and diverse Weetzie and her friends are, love is what matters. Editor Charlotte Zolotow was so far ahead of her time back in the '80s that she was already in the 21st century.

I've been a Francesca Lia Block fan for years without having ever read what is probably her most popular book, Weetzie Bat. And I loved this so, so much. It's basically a modern day fairy tale, but structured in reverse. Most fairy tales start with some awful thing happening to the protagonist. They then go on a journey and things usually get better from there. This is set up in reverse in where only good things happen to Weetzie Bat from the start, her life is so amazing, so magical and filled with nothing but love. It is 100% fantasy. She is not supposed to be real and grounded. Halfway through the book though, real life starts to intrude on the fairy tale. Fear, infidelity, drug abuse, death, a fucking AIDS epidemic, etc. But it show more maintains its fairy tale format by 1) maintaining the fast-paced storytelling and 2) keeping this silly little family together. The hard times don't completely break them. They grieve and they move on, together. It's really rather sweet and admirable...which is the whole point of a fairy tale: to model the values we'd most like to see in ourselves and others. This little novella is so simply about love and forgiveness, but I could probably spend hours talking about it. show less

I was surprisingly impressed with how much I liked this book after I finished reading it. The author managed to make difficult subjects readable without creating bias in the reader. I found myself rooting for Weetzie and her family despite their unconventionalities. I was particularly surprised at the inclusion of a magical realism element. While this new twist was a bit jolting at first, I thought the author, like the family she created, managed to seamlessly incorporate it into the story. Having been exposed to young adult fiction for quite some time, I hadn’t read many LGBTQI titles that so poignantly expressed the difficulties of growing up young and queer while maintaining a sense of optimism. I am anxious to read the other books show more in this series! show less

I loved this book! I found it to be so poignant and bittersweet as the characters try to make sense of the world around them. In spite of everything they have faced, the death of Secret Agent's grandmother, Weetzie's parents' divorce, and Duck's experience with AIDS, Weetzie maintains her positive outlook on life and belief in the power of love. "She knew they were all afraid. But love and disease are both like electricity....We can choose...we can choose to plug into the love current instead." (p. 88). The characters remind me very much of my younger son, a nontraditional musician type, now 22, who is still trying to find his way.

3Q,4P. When I think of Weetzie Bat I think of heart. Published in 1989, this book fuses reality with imagination. The story takes a few pages to get into, and can be hard to follow at times, but in many ways, the scattered narrative asks the reader to put aside thought and go willy-nilly into the story with the same laidback attitude as the characters in the book. Quirky from start to finish, Weetzie Bat touches on all forms of love, grief, hopelessness, and happily ever afters in just over 100 pages.