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3.21 AVERAGE
3.21 AVERAGE
“Some people think you begin to grow up when you stop trying to figure out who you are.”
The Waters & The Wild (which takes its title from a Yeats poem) is the story of Bee, a rather unusual thirteen year old girl. Bee, as she describes herself is a “double Gemini girl-Scorpio moon- who lives with her therapist mom and her mom’s astrologer boyfriend in Venice, California; I go to school, where I get bad grades; I write poetry with my left hand, dance in my room, read books, listen to music, Google images of goblins and the tattoos my mom won’t let me get, dream of devouring my garden”.
Things start to change for Bee when she sees her doopleganger- a sign approaching death- who claims that Bee has stolen her life and she wants it back. In her quest to discover what is happening Bee befriends two other outsiders, Sarah the reincarnated soul of a slave girl, and Haze who was fathered by aliens. Sarah, Haze and Bee have never before fit in, but together the three of them create a world of their own as they try to figure out who Bee really is and where she belongs.
“We’re more powerful than we think,” Bee said. “We just haven’t explored it yet.”
Fortunately the cover isn’t the only thing that is gorgeous about this book. Earlier this week I lamented the failure of Pretty Dead to capture anything close to Block’s previous books, in particular Echo. In contrast, The Waters & The Wild, which is both a beautiful and original book. My major complaint of the book is that at a skimpy 115 pages (and tiny pages too, not normal sized ones) The Waters & The Wild is simply too short. The characters and the element of whimsy she created were so lovely that I only wish I’d had the opportunity to stay emersed in them a little bit longer. ****
The Waters & The Wild (which takes its title from a Yeats poem) is the story of Bee, a rather unusual thirteen year old girl. Bee, as she describes herself is a “double Gemini girl-Scorpio moon- who lives with her therapist mom and her mom’s astrologer boyfriend in Venice, California; I go to school, where I get bad grades; I write poetry with my left hand, dance in my room, read books, listen to music, Google images of goblins and the tattoos my mom won’t let me get, dream of devouring my garden”.
Things start to change for Bee when she sees her doopleganger- a sign approaching death- who claims that Bee has stolen her life and she wants it back. In her quest to discover what is happening Bee befriends two other outsiders, Sarah the reincarnated soul of a slave girl, and Haze who was fathered by aliens. Sarah, Haze and Bee have never before fit in, but together the three of them create a world of their own as they try to figure out who Bee really is and where she belongs.
“We’re more powerful than we think,” Bee said. “We just haven’t explored it yet.”
Fortunately the cover isn’t the only thing that is gorgeous about this book. Earlier this week I lamented the failure of Pretty Dead to capture anything close to Block’s previous books, in particular Echo. In contrast, The Waters & The Wild, which is both a beautiful and original book. My major complaint of the book is that at a skimpy 115 pages (and tiny pages too, not normal sized ones) The Waters & The Wild is simply too short. The characters and the element of whimsy she created were so lovely that I only wish I’d had the opportunity to stay emersed in them a little bit longer. ****
Finally a Francesca Lia Block novella I really enjoyed! It wasn't as mind-bending as some of her other books, and while it was characteristically airy-fairy, it wasn't as annoying as, say, the Weetzie Bat series and the like.
Here's something I like about it: while the reader can decide that Bee is actually a changeling and choose to go back to her faerie world, it could also be read as Bee being mentally ill and escaping into a fantasy world. Well, that's how I read it, anyway. Or maybe it can also be read as a young girl finally growing up and fitting in with the rest of her high school. Her friends stay caught in the childish world that is their youth and mature slower.
Here's something I like about it: while the reader can decide that Bee is actually a changeling and choose to go back to her faerie world, it could also be read as Bee being mentally ill and escaping into a fantasy world. Well, that's how I read it, anyway. Or maybe it can also be read as a young girl finally growing up and fitting in with the rest of her high school. Her friends stay caught in the childish world that is their youth and mature slower.
Bee has always felt strange in her own skin - like she didn't quite belong, even in her own body. Still, she manages to make two uncoventional friends at school - Haze, who thinks he's an alien, and Sarah, who thinks she's a reincarnated slave. They are brought together by their so-called freakishness, but they are bound by a genuine liking and concern for one another. Because they have this understanding, Bee lets her friends in on a secret - she has a doppelganger, and she has no idea what to make of it. The main question that this story brought up for me was: Is the doppelganger real? Does she really replace Bee? Or is the doppelganger a metaphor for the changes that we go through in adolescence? I felt like there was a lot of ambiguity in this book, and I'm not sure I liked that. I still enjoyed Block's writing - very fluid and poetic, as usual. My overall feeling, though, is that I would much rather sit down with one of the Weetzie Bat books.
On second thought, this book left me really annoyingly unsatisfied. I think it was all the loose ends - that and not feeling terribly connected to the main characters. When I come close to finishing a book, I want to feel like I don't want it to end because I'll miss the characters and the story. I didn't feel like that at all with this book - I just feel sort of frustrated, and don't have anyone to talk it out with because I don't know anyone else who has read the book! I feel like maybe it was too short, and if it had been a bit more fleshed out I wouldn't feel like I was left hanging. It makes me sad, because I think Francesca Lia Block is really cool and I want to like everything she writes! I guess it's time for something solid and involved, like a Jodi Picoult novel. I need to feel engrossed by what I'm reading, and I'm pissed that The Waters and the Wild didn't do that for me.
do you know that feeling of climbing a set of stairs, climbing at an even, enjoyable pace so that each heave and push sends a deep ache through your thighs, muscle, and bone? and with every step you climb that feeling pools and gathers, coiling warm within you as you approach the top - a kind of buildup. that's the feeling i had reading through 3/4s of this book - a kind of slow burn of tension, right in my chest, enough to keep me going but so delicate i knew i had to take my time with it - but beyond the top of the stairs, when you go down, it's a messy descent - it's like the wind is at your back all of a sudden, pushing you to hop and trip down in random intervals until you land with a bit of a huff and a slight twisted ankle. i loved the prose, the syntax, the diction - it's an appeal to literary senses, but the characters and the ending fell short - it felt like the story could have really gone somewhere, but instead the door closed too early, too hurriedly.
Bee is 13 and has never felt like she fits in. However, this is more than just your average teenage angst... amongst Bee's many odd characteristics, she has the urge to eat dirt from her garden and is frightened by metal objects. One night she wakes up to find a girl in her room, a girl who looks just like her and tells her "You are me," before disappearing. Bee finds her world unraveling after this visit, and she reaches out to two unlikely people at her school: Haze, a boy who believes he is an alien, and Stephanie, a girl who thinks she is a reincarnated slave named Sarah. The three loners become friends, crashing a party and practicing magic. They realize that Bee is actually a changeling, an elf who took the place of the real Bee at birth. The real girl haunts Bee, lurking in mirrors and demanding her life back. Bee grows weaker as time passes and soon leaves her friends to return to her own world.
This short novel may appeal to those who have trouble fitting in and reluctant readers. Block's writing style is beautiful and keeps the book moving, but the story itself is underdeveloped. There are some creepy moments, particularly when Bee is being followed and threatened by the real Bee, but overall the plot is flat and changes tone too quickly from mystery to fairy-tale to love story. We know from the get-go that Bee is a changeling, which undermines the mystery and makes the other characters seem slow for not realizing it. The characters act much older than they are, often having far too unrealistic interactions. There's potential in this story, but while the fairy aspect may appeal to some, this is not a must-read.
This short novel may appeal to those who have trouble fitting in and reluctant readers. Block's writing style is beautiful and keeps the book moving, but the story itself is underdeveloped. There are some creepy moments, particularly when Bee is being followed and threatened by the real Bee, but overall the plot is flat and changes tone too quickly from mystery to fairy-tale to love story. We know from the get-go that Bee is a changeling, which undermines the mystery and makes the other characters seem slow for not realizing it. The characters act much older than they are, often having far too unrealistic interactions. There's potential in this story, but while the fairy aspect may appeal to some, this is not a must-read.
More like a 2 1/2 stars* maybe, because uhh what? A bit like an acid-trip in novella form. Francesca Lia Block continues to be stupid talented and she writes so beautifully that sometimes I find that I'm okay with excusing her total lack of actual... cogent.. plot lines.. eehhh
Let me preface by saying that I love almost everything I've read by Block, so I didn't expect this book to be any different. However, I just didn't really like it. It wasn't terrible, but all the trademark bits and pieces that make Block's voice what it is seemed to be missing here, or at the very most, muted. The writing was disjointed, the plot not fully fleshed out, and, compared to her other writing, the flow was missing. Instead it was clunky and seemed forced. The overall message of the story I liked, but there are many other works by Block that I would recommend before this one.
A brief, serious faery story that, I suspect, will continue to haunt me in the future. Places are lyrical, places are not quite as lyrical, but a good, fast, intriguing read.