Twenty years later…how many fairy tales have the nerve to return to their protagonists so many years after that first flush of magic, dreams and romance? Overall, this strikes me as the ideal book for Valentine’s Day, if you’re in a dreamy state of mind.Weetzie Bat and her Secret Agent Lover Man have been together for twenty years and then some, and frankly both are having what the less charitable among us would call a mid-life crisis, both as to their own lives and futures and the futures of their life together. Weetzie and Max are no longer living with Duck-and-Dirk in the magical cottage left to them by Dirk’s grandmother Fifi. Ping and Valentine Jah-Love are drifting away physically, though Ping and Weetzie are running a vintage clothing shop together. Even Cherokee and Witch Baby have grown up and away and begun the separation from birth family into their own adulthood as the two girls begin college.As the book begins, Weetzie packs up an overnight bag with a few select outfits, her favorites from the shop and from her life, and checks into the ‘Pink Motel’. (What else in the candy floss fairy land of Weetzie’s and Lia’s Shangri-L.A.?) For Weetzie, this hotel holds special meaning, as it’s where her high school prom was held, and where she met the boy who might have been her Certain Special Someone; she can’t help but wonder whether he was truly The One For Her, now that all the kisses have gone out of her relationship with Max, her Secret Agent Lover Man given her by the gehie in Fifi’s magic lamp.It’s as magical as we might expect from a sequel in the Weetzie Bat series. The desk clerk is blue. The housekeeper is invisible, having learned that art as the ultimate protective camouflage in El Salvador. The room service waiter is a faun…and the guests are equally strange, from the supernatural and mythical—a mermaid, forest sprites, tree spirits—to the mundane—a transvestite who throws smashing parties, a wedding party. Weetzie has a series of quasi-romantic encounters with the other guests, culminating in the kisses mentioned in the title, and from each of these kisses she gets a jewel: a pearl, a ruby, an emerald, an amethyst, a sapphire. In the end, she does tie up the threads of her wondering about the prom, when she meets her date, now grown to a man, and realizes that this would not have been right for her after all; they close the main plot arc with a kiss and a jewel of their own for him, a diamond.In fairness, I can see why the fans of Block’s previous Weetzie Bat books were so dubious about this one, both from a literary standpoint and a stylistic one. Written fifteen years (or nearly so) after Block wrote the first five tales in this sequence, how could her writing style do anything BUT change? How many of us haven’t grown and changed in that time span, and with it our reading skills and tastes and wants and needs? Were you really expecting to return to the magic of the first books? Well, in fairness, yes, so did I the first time I read the book. Coming back for a second read-through…I appreciate it much more for what (I think) it is: Weetzie Bat grows up. As we all do. As we all must, unless we’ve had fairy dust sprinkled on us by Peter Pan. But wasn’t that also the point of Peter and Wendy: everyone grows up but Peter? If you’re longing for more magically carefree magic realism books about being young in L.A., who wants to read about being middle-aged in L.A. when all the dreams might be dying? Not so much. In that case, I suggest you stick with the first five.
Weetzie Bat is older now, but still has a lot of growing up to do. She finds herself in her forties and the same person as she was in her twenties. Not that Weetzie isn't a great person, but she really needs to find herself. She decides to take a little vacation. Weetzie packs a small suitcase and slips out of the house and into the Pink Hotel. She doesn't tell anyone except for Ping, her friend that she has run her store while she discovers herself. She may be in for more than she bargained for. They may be more magic then she expected and maybe she has to help other people in order to help herself.It is really great to see Weetzie grow up, but still hold on to some of her magic. Was it childish to run away from her life, maybe, but sometimes people need to take a break. That was the problem Weetzie had, because she fell into her life too soon. She got a house and My Secret Agent Lover Man and a whole family of misfits to call her own. It was all too soon and she couldn't be sure that she was who she was or if she was a product of the people in her life. This was a great novel of self-discovery, and how sometimes everything you want you already have. I really enjoyed the necklace of kisses part of the story, it was a very interesting idea and I hadn't been expecting it to be what it was. Some might think that grown-up Weetzie means no magic, but there was probably more magic in the Pink Hotel than in all the other Weetzie Bat books. If you love Weetzie, than you probably have already read this, but if you haven't give it a try.First Line:"Where were the kisses?"Favorite Line:"'She is,' he said."(not very good out of context, so you'll just have to read it.)Read more: http://www.areadingnook.com/#ixzz1lLC...
What do You think about Necklace Of Kisses (2006)?
Originally posted at A Novel IdeaRATING: 3/5I love love loved the Weetzie Bat books, which I first picked up quite some time ago, and which I now own in one of those big all-books-in-one volumes. This book takes us back to Weetzie and her family, all of whom have grown older, and back to Los Angeles where they’ve lived all their adventures. It was wonderful to revisit characters I had loved and grown attached to in the past books, which were all written in the 80′s and yet seemed so current anyway. Weetzie, if you don’t know her, is fond of candy pink tulle dresses and vintage shoes and big plastic sunglasses. She was my tour guide through the wonderful world of Los Angeles, which became less of a big city and more of a theme park—a strange land, one that I’ve been to in real life but would never have seen in so much technicolor glory if I hadn’t read the Weetzie Bat books. Weetzie knows all the best places to eat in LA, and all the most magical places, in a modern world where magic often seems to have no place. She leaves her house and checks in at a big pink hotel in the hills, where nothing is what it seems, and where the most ordinary people are actually extraordinary. It was great to be back in LA. My only complaint, the one thing keeping this book from being a 4 out of 5, would have to be how random it was at times. It was a lot more random than the other books, and the inclusion of so many fairytale bits and pieces was too much at times. But you know, it really was good to be back in Los Angeles with Weetzie. And what’s more, even though the characters got older just like I did…Weetzie definitely aged well.
—Paola (A Novel Idea)
I love Weetzie. I adore her!! I'm so happy that I discovered Francesca Lia Block because omg she makes me feel young again.I originally thought that this book was going to be Secret Agent Lover Man's. It seemed like his tale would be next considering we've heard from the rest of the cast. But I was wrong. In this book Weetzie turned 40 and realized she needed to find herself before she went on through the next stage of her life.I really wish that I had read this book last week over my birthday. It would have made me cry more :) Good tears what make you look back... but tears none the less.This book was amazing. It filled in blanks that had been left out of the books before and then opened up new tales that could be added onto if FLB decided she wanted to keep going.What made me sniffle and snot the most was Weetzie being told she finally grew up. I feel that way too. I'm 32 and still feel as immature as 12. I wonder if it will take me 4 decades to feel like a Mam and not a Miss. Will I realize that I'm not immortal in 8 short years?One thing that stood out to me was how my library shelved this book. The Weetzie Bat series before have all been shelved in YA. This one was shelved in ADULT. I wonder if that was planned or if it was just my library.There is a very interesting chapter at the end that tells about the history of Weetzie's fashion. It lined everything up for me. What I thought was being told years later was actually being told years in advance.I seriously love it that FLB aged Weetzie. LOVED IT!! I love how even WItch Baby (who now goes by the name Lily) and Cherokee think they know everything there is to learn but realize that they are their mother's daughter. There's no running away from that. - Brilliant!I totally recommend this book to all you dreamers out there. For anyone who believes that life is starting to pass them by. And to those out there who look at thier husband and stop seeing the boy you fell in love with and start to wonder -- where has that boy gone off to? This book will help you find all of those answers.Like I said... LOVES IT!I am foever Team Weetzie!
—Greta is Erikasbuddy
Meh. I guess you can't go home again. When I was younger, I loved the Weetzie Bat series. It was tailor-made for melodramatic alternateens, and I could overlook the grotesque whimsy. This new-ish book, which gives us a 40-yr old Weetzie with several grown children and a slumping relationship with her significant other, was a total disappointment. Feeling oppressed and unloved, and hoping to reconnect with some never-before-mentioned dude who took her to prom (I swear this never happened in the original series), she flees her cutesy cottage for a mysterious pink hotel. There's some stuff involving an actual mermaid and a glamorous lounge singer and a lot of other twee nonsense. I think that at some point, she sees the prom guy, but I'm not sure because I stopped reading after the 4th chapter. Phooey. What a bunch of twee dreck.
—Lauren
