Dangerous Angels

Dangerous Angels
Block, Francesca Lia

New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998

Annotation: This is a set of stories which follows the lives of Weetzie Bat and her friends and family. The main theme that revolves around each story is finding love and keeping it. But there are other themes that creep into the stories, including homosexuality, L.A. and the old timers, family, food, faith, music, and writing. All of the characters in the stories are beautiful as are the scenes themselves and you find yourself lost in between the lines wistfully hoping that someday you could get a glimpse of Shangri-L.A. In Weetzie Bat's struggle, she wants to find "MySecretAgentLoverMan", who she then has a child with and continues living with him, her best friend-Dirk, and her best friend's lover-Duck. In the midst of living together, Weetzie and MySecretAgentLoverMan learn to resolve their issues regarding faithfulness and forgiveness and raise both of their daughters, Cherokee and Witch Baby (whose real name is Lily). Witch Baby's story is next as she tries to figure out who she is and where she comes from. She wears her cowboy skates and wanders the streets of L.A. to find that her mother is the leader of a Jane Mansfield Cult that watches Mansfields movies all day and chanting mantras to keep out the emotion of pain. In the midst of it all, Witch Baby falls in love with Angel Juan, who is then deported to Mexico. At the end of the story, Witch Baby learns a powerful lesson about family, love, and identity. Cherokee Bat's story is the teenage discovery of love and sexuality. Her boyfriend, Raphael, who is also her best friend is the lead guitarist in their band, The Goat Guys. Raphael, Cherokee, Witch Baby, and Angel Juan all lose sight of why they joined the band in the first place when fame gets to their heads. The result is that the lovers and friends must remember why they're together to combat the darker side of L.A.'s music industry. Witch Baby and Angel Juan then have another fallout when he decides he would like to create music without the band. Witch Baby panics and she forgets her own identity and feels lost without her other half. It takes the ghost of Charlie Bat, Weetzie's father, to help her remember. Finally, the story of Dirk and how he realized his sexuality is the final story. Dirk finds Pup, his first love, but is left broken hearted until a Genie comes along to make him see the destiny that awaits him.

Reason for nomination: The stories are powerful, beautiful, and motivating. While the characters sometimes show the world through rose colored lenses, the ugliness still seeps through. With the characters you learn about so many of the issues that are wrong with society. They cover racism, disease, suicide, grief, drugs, faith, identity crisis, and so forth. But they always manage to get through each situation through the love and strength of their friends and family. As each character grows, they not only learn to forgive those who wronged them but also to love and accept themselves for who they are. The language, including some of her invented words like Lanka and slinkstrer cool, that Block uses is lyrical and you can almost hear the music playing in the background while the words move across the page. I've learned to love and cry with each character and found their stories inspiring.

Genre: Romance