Blood Roses Book

Francesca Lia Block may well be my favorite author: I certainly own more of her books (15 and counting) than anyone else's. She's more magical, winged, and punk-rock than Alice Hoffman, with a similar belief in the all-consuming, all-transforming power of romantic longing, and a penchant for lush, detailed descriptions of vintage outfits and ethnic foods and the streets and canyons of L.A. But she's spent her career in the young adult ghetto, because her main concern, I think, is reaching out to the awkward, fledgling souls of teenage girls, taking them by the hand, and leading them out of the twisted expectations of our culture into a joyful and color-saturated space where who they are is enough. That's what she did for me when, at 14, I picked up her debut novel Weetzie Bat. I suppose there are some well-adjusted adolescents that don't need her books: but for the sake of all the weird, smart girls at the back of the room, I'm glad she's still writing.

"Blood Roses" is a series of tiny, perfect short stories. A girl kissed by a David-Bowie-listening painter grows gigantic in her joy; Elodie, in love with a tattoo artist, finds her skin spontaneously generating art; an equestrienne meets the perfect boy in the shape of a West L.A. gang-member centaur. I read this at a gallop--half an hour for a hundred pages. These tales are like sips of ambrosia.