Girl Goddess #9

Starred review from September 2, 1996
Writing with the same sense of wonder that gives such magic to Weetzie Bat and her other novels, Block turns out nine short stories that share a similar theme. Here, as in her previous work, the author sets about deflating the oppositions that most people either reinforce or invent in order to distance themselves from others: carefree child/knowing adult; straight/gay; black/white; male/female. In one of the most ambitious entries, "Dragons in Manhattan," a girl with two mothers decides to find her father and, after traveling from New York to California, learns that one of the "mothers" is in fact her father, a transsexual. Throughout, eros and love receive modulated but frank tribute. The roses, camellias and jacarandas of Block's lush prose style scent these works with a heady perfume; the disadvantage here has to do with her manipulation of the short story genre. Atmosphere is built at the expense of momentum, and the collection as a whole, while still superior to most YA writing, doesn't achieve the heights of the author's best fiction. Ages 12-up.