Francesca Lia Block

Quite honestly, Francesca Lia Block has a writing style the likes of which I've never seen in any novel. Her books are all pretty short, but with so much emotion packed inside of them. It's almost as if she started writing a poem and just kept going until she had a book. So far I have read Weetzie Bat, Witch Baby, Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys, Missing Angel Juan and The Rose and the Beast. Every book was beautiful, that's really the only way to describe them. The Rose and the Beast, which I read most recently, was an interesting twist on a few of the classic fairytales like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, Thumblina and Beauty and the Beast. What made it so fascinating was that Block offered a modern and darkened retelling of the stories we all know so well. I really think that the works of Francesca Lia Block are some of the only books that could never be turned into movies. There is just nothing in the real world that could do her words justice.

- Krista