brilliant, dreamy prose and captivating characters. FLB manages to bring out a whole new side of los angeles in this story. a los angeles that is much darker and more desperate than Weetzie's LA. bee is a fascinating character. this story made me think about so many new things that i believe i will have to reread it many times to catch all the wondrous details. it reminded me of i was a teenage fairy. the changeling theme seemed especially relevant as a metaphor for adolescence. It's very hard to review a new book by an author you loved as a child. Is the author really not writing as well now as she did when you were young? Or are you simply no longer the target age group for the book?In the case of The Waters and the Wild, I think the answer is both. Francesca Lia Block is a wonderful writer, and her prose always glistens (even if its heavy, ethereal descriptions are an acquired taste and don't work for everyone). The prose is still beautiful here, but there are so many moments where the poetry gives way to heavy-handed metaphor and social consciousness in language that feels actively clunky. While she's always been a very conscientious writer, my instinct is to say that she's gotten less nuanced with age. On the other hand, I think some of my disappointment comes from simply growing older and not needing as much the stories of 13-year-old outcast girls who believe they may secretly be fairies in a magical realist metaphor for puberty. There are only so many times I can read Block describing jacaranda trees and the magic of Los Angeles and unlikely friendships among oddballs.Yet if I were still 13, I know my eyes would have lit up when I read this book, just as they did when I read the Weetzie Bat books and I Was a Teenage Fairy. Consequently, I would hand this book to current outcast middle schoolers without hesitation, hoping it would give them the comfort Block's older books gave to me. And Block has a talent for writing teenage characters who are authentic to the time in which she's writing, from the 80s and early 90s kids of the Weetzie Bat books to the late 90s/early 2000s teens of the novels and short stories I first encountered when I was among their number. This is Francesca Lia Block for the teenagers who barely remember the world before 9/11, authentic and devoid of the feeling of being projections of an older author's long-gone youth. Every generation deserves a Francesca Lia Block book of their own, and I sincerely hope this book can be theirs, even if it isn't mine.
What do You think about The Waters & The Wild (2009)?
I didn't get this book. It's too short, the plot was confusing and the writing was odd.
—captivepart
Short easy read, kept my attention. I read it in one day.
—gelis416
