Weetzie Bat

Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989. 109 pages.

     1. A succinct evaluative annotation. Plot: This book really doesn’t have a conflict where the characters rise against all conflicts and win in the end. Rather, this book follows Weetzie Bat and her friends in Los Angeles and talks about her life and adventures she has with them. Weetzie meets her best friend, Dirk, who is gay and finds the love of his life, Duck. Weetzie has a child, for the experience, and starts dating a guy who makes movies and that’s how they make their living. Although this was a short book, it had a lot of content about Weetzie’s life and the events/places she goes to on a normal day in Los Angeles. Theme: I think the main theme of this novel is living life: Weetzie lives life as if every day is her last day and she has fun everyday with the people that she loves. Tone: The tone is very happy, for the majority of the novel. There is only a few sad, serious moments when there is a death in the family, but the rest of the novel is happy and carefree, living the dream life every day. Style: The author’s writing style is different and weird. Block capitalizes unique words, she uses different terminology that no one that I know of says in real life, and half of the book was a narration of the actions Weetzie did that day while the other half is Weetzie talking to one or more of her friends. It’s definitely not like anything that I have read before. Characterizations: Weetzie is a fun, carefree, wild and unique girl. She dresses however she wants to, usually as a Native American and has her own style. She looks at life with possibilities and positive thoughts rather than negatively. Readability: While this book was short and easy to read through (only 109 pages) the content really needs to be taken slowly and read very carefully. I’d say it’s a little difficult to read, despite the short story, because I had to go back a few times and reread a page just to try and figure out what I was reading. 

2. My reactions to the book. This was a strange and unusual book, I’m not sure if I liked it or not. It basically just followed Weetzie around explaining her everyday life and there was no purpose to the story. One of the strengths I saw, though, was the different, original language that Block used, even if it did confused me a little bit. Block is very talented in created another language and meanings. However, I’m not sure many will like this book because of the lack of story and also because of the unusual language. As for accuracy, I don’t think anything in this novel was true or related to any true story.

3. Comment on the cover art. The cover art shows the dream state that Weetzie and her friends live in. It’s kind of blurry and the girl on the cover seems to be content, which is a normal day for Weetzie. I think that many might pick this book off of the shelf to look at it because of the shortness of the novel and the coloring of the cover – bright and it looks cheerfully. I think it was a good cover for this book.