Reviews for Wasteland

The average rating for Wasteland based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-02-23 00:00:00 Haris Maihadi "We keep burning in the brown smog pit. The girls swarm in their black moth dresses. Their scalps are shaved like concentration camp ladies. Rats click my head. Everything broken.". This is how Wasteland begins. This is why I love love Francesca so much. She uses words good. When I'm particularly down, I can pick up any of FLB's books and feel light again. Sometimes, that makes me feel icky and not so sure of my mental well being, seeing that her stories usually involve some sort of abuse, whether it being sexual, mental physical, and/or metaphysical. But to be part of the world that she creates is a real treasure. I thank the gods for her. Open any page, I dare you... "I looked down at my lap and you knew what it was. You took off your sweatshirt and put it around me. You tied it on my hips. You helped me up. My body sticky and hot. The cramps were roiling, tight pain. You held me against you for a second. I could feel your heart beating through your pilling green-and-white striped gym shirt. I wanted to sink down again into you. If I were you I would be tall and strong and I'd never bleed like this, this shame stain pain of blood every month until I get old. I was old, all of a sudden. I wanted to be a little girl. A little boy." I mean, I love Judy Blume, but at 13, I would have appreciated this depiction much, much more. Another: "We got quiet. The garden was combing her hair and putting on her earrings. The house was full of dancing creatures, not male not female but both, two lovers in one body. The books downstairs were reciting their poetry to each other, rubbing together, whispering through the leather covers. Wine was flowing through the water pipes. You had caught my leaping heart in your hand like a fish." Okay, time to let you in on a little secret. This story is about incest. Yeppers. She pulled a VC Andrews, a Robert Cormier, a Cement Garden...See what I mean about icky? Yeah. Right. Okay, so why only 3 stars? Not for the language, no, never that. But, I felt that FLB pulled a Pretty in Pink on us. You know how that Molly Ringwald character was supposed to end up with Ducky, but she didn't like that one bit and had the ending rewritten to end up with Andrew McCarthy? Yeah, that blows. So, here we have this really intense subject matter that pulls you in, makes you want to scrub yourself with your louffah really really hard and then---- she phones it in! WTF? Did she lose her edge when she became a mom? Because I'm feeling that she rewrote this and it was so unlike her. Too bad for us. I still love her, I will always love her. She will be rainy days in the Harvard subway station reading Witch Baby and snowy days in the mountains reading The Rose and the Beast. She will remind me that this is what I wanted to do and do well.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-10-22 00:00:00 Kyle Greever This is one of the most beautiful and hauntingly sad love stories I've ever read. I have read it over fifteen times and still, I get the urge to pick it up and read all over again every day. It tells the story of Lex and Marina, a brother and sister with a deep bond that is both beautiful and frightening. Early on the reader can see that the bond proves to be harder and harder for Lex to deal with. Marina's world is turned upside down when her brother commits suicide. The bulk of the story revolves around Marina's journey to find out why her brother committed suicide, coming to terms with what existed between them, and making peace with the haunting of her heart. Francesca Lia Block uses the most whimsical and lush vivid language to save this from being just a raunchy spin on an incestuous relationship. It truly is one of the most heartbreaking love stories I've ever read.