The Hanged Man by Francesca Lia Block

This is truly my favorite Francesca Lia Block book. There are so many reasons to love it. It is beautiful, dark, surreal, and told through Tarot cards, which I love. The characters are great, mysterious boys and little fairy girls.

Laurel has had a damaging childhood and these memories push to the surface after her father dies. Laurel seems to be town between a deep love for her father, as in when she talks about their trip to Jamaica, and a deep anger and hurt, as when she talks about her fear of him. Laurel's friend Claudia's mother tells fortunes with Tarot cards and since they were little the girls have been attracted to these powerful cards. Laurel is the Queen of Cups and when she is angry or upset, cups break around the house. After her father's death, she knows the cups will not break anymore and wants to be like an empty cup. She stops eating and her mother starts cooking.

With the help of a mysterious boy named Jack. He seems to be part demon and only when she becomes healthy does he stop appearing.

I really do love this book. I'm sure that I will read it again and again and again.

Little Ways to Keep Calm and Carry On by Mark A. Reinecke

This was a cute little book. It was so cute that I had to pick it up, check it out, and read it. It is PINK with a crown on it and so perfectly little that it was irresistible.

But, really, there was no new information here for me. Maybe that's just because I read so many self-help books and most of them are about letting go and being happy. It really did seem pretty basic, however. I liked it. It was a short read and the chapters were laid out in a helpful manner. There were exercises and quotes. This was a nice little book but not quite worth my time.

Baby Be-Bop by Francesca Lia Block

This was the final book of the original Weetzie Bat books. Later, Block added an adult sequel which I should be getting to later this summer. Whenever I have read these books in the past, I usually skipped this last book. It felt like the darkest of the series and something about it made me uncomfortable and sad.

I was wrong.

This is a beautiful book about Dirk and his family and love. Dirk has always known that he was gay but he is afraid. He doesn't want to be afraid. He makes himself the strangest, fastest, and smartest so that nobody will have a reason to doubt him. He falls for his friend Pup who seems to feel the same but shuts it off, shuts Dirk off. Dirk goes to punk shows. He moshes. He picks fights with skin heads.

When Dirk fights with the wrong guys, he ends up in the hospital and his grandmother's genie lamp comes to the rescue. He learns about his parents and about Grandma Fifi and about himself.

I loved this book. I'm so glad that I gave it another try.

Finding Angel Juan by Francesca Lia Block

The fourth book in the Weetzie Bat series finds us with Witchbaby again. She loves Angel Juan and he loves her but she loves him too much and he isn't ready for it. Angel Juan decides to leave. He wants to go to New York and make his own music instead of being in the band and being admired by Witchbaby.

However, after only one letter, Witchbaby becomes convinced that something is wrong. She decides to go to New York and find Angel Juan. Luckily, Weetzie has held on to her father's apartment since his death and there is somewhere for Witchbaby to stay.

New York doesn't go as planned though. Charlie, Witchbaby's ghosty-almost-grandpa, leads her through the city, making her see it through her camera lens. He wants her to discover herself and let Angel Juan go but Witchbaby was right to go because something IS wrong. The conclusion is a terrifying scene that is enough to set any reader on edge.

I like this book. It is sad and sweet and excited. It brings tears to my eyes and makes me wish for a Charlie Bat ghosty-almost-grandpa of my own.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Something interesting happened when I read this book. One day, exasperated with how much I disliked it, I asked a room full of kids if they had read it. About 8 hands went up. When I asked what everyone thought about it, all of the girls told me it was boring and they hated it but all of the boys told me that it was so good that I needed to read the rest of the Brian books then they bombarded me with "Have you gotten to the part where..."

I didn't like this book. Plain and simple. It was well written and a pretty quick read but it isn't my style. It is a book for boys and I'll just leave it at that. I did finish it by flashlight while my boyfriend fished, though, and that seems pretty appropriate.

Brian is on his way to the forests of Canada to visit his father who is working there. Brian's parents are recently divorced and he is carrying a secret. The secret is that his mother had an affair and he saw her with another man. While Brian is in the small plane, that is what he is thinking about. Then, his pilot has a heart attack and dies and everything changes.

This is a downright courageous tale of freedom but sometimes it lost me. Brian just had too much information stored in his brain and too many things felt unbelievable to me. Boys will love it, though.

Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys by Francesca Lia Block

The adults are gone, shooting a movie out of the country and have left Cherokee, Witch Baby, and Raphael in the care of Coyote, their Native American friend. Coyote prefers to be alone, however, and the teenagers are pretty much in charge of themselves. This may be the cause of the mayhem.

First, Witchbaby is sad. She won't leave the mud shed where she keeps her drums. She is covered in mud. She eats it. She pretends she is a seed. Cherokee decides to make her wings. She asks Coyote for help and he calls on the birds to give their feathers. With the wings, Witchbaby rises from the mud and plays the drums at her own birthday party where Angel Juan reappears.

The four teenagers start a band and soon they are getting popular. Cherokee will ask for gifts for each of the Goat Guys but there are some dangerous consequences.

This isn't my favorite Weetzie Bat book. Honestly, I have always found Cherokee a bit annoying. It's still a pretty good read though.

Witch Baby by Francesca Lia Block

The second in the Weetzie Bat series is possibly my favorite. I love Witch Baby. She is one of my all time favorite characters.

Witch Baby is the love child (or maybe not so love child) of My Secret Agent Lover Man and Vixanne Wigg. She has purple tilty eyes and curly cashew toes and tangle ball black hair. She is so different from the rest of her family. She sees the world like her father, as a dark, sad place. Every night before bed she puts three news stories on her wall. She is always fighting like an angry kitten and she is in love with Angel Juan, who is not in love with her.

This is a story of Witch Baby learning who she is and learning about love and life and being a part of a family. It is sweet, tender, and humorous.

The Green Mile by Stephen King

I kind of think that all of King's books should be released as serials. I love King's writing. In fact, at this point I don't think I've come across a book of his that I don't like. However, I have to admit that I haven't read a lot of them. They are so long that they look daunting. I would have read The Stand years ago if it had been a serial novel!

So, I read this in the six separate books (uping my book count for the year) but chose to review them as one large book.

Paul Edgecomb is old. He's really, really old. He's living in a home that his grandchildren have put him in and he is nagged by the memory of 1932, the year he was a supervisor on a death row block and a miracle occurred. A man accused of murdering two girls is sent to walk the green mile but John Coffey turns out to be nothing like he seems.

I really liked this book. I don't want to say too much because this set up lends itself to giving a lot away. It feels like every book has a climax and every climax is pertinent to the plot. I think that this is another pretty smart novel from King though, bringing to light racial issues and revolving around the theme of good and evil. I hope to watch the movie soon, which I've only seen parts of. Rest assured, the book was completely worth the time.

Aimee by Mary Beth Miller

One thing that I've really enjoyed about reading this year is that I have forced myself to take out books that have been on my "To Be Read List" since as early as 2000. Out of the few that I've read (four or five, I think), only one has been kind of crappy and then the rest have been gems like this.

Our main character (MC), we don't know her name until about 20 pages from the end, is telling the story through a journal. She is required to keep a journal by her psychologist, who she calls Marge because she looks like a Marge even if that isn't her name.

MC is lonely and living with a terrible guilt. Her best friend, Aimee, killed herself and MC has been accused of having some hand in it, causing the news papers to call her JK for Jack Kevorkian. Through little blips of back story, we learn that MC was part of a tight knit group of friends. They were always together and they were always helping each other. The reader may see Aimee's warning signs early. She exhibits reckless behavior that at first seems typical for a teenager but somehow has a darkness to it.

I enjoyed a lot about this book. I felt so close to the MC because of how it was told. It also felt like a mystery. We don't know why Aimee is upset until late in the book and we don't hear about how she died until nearly the end. This was a fast read, engrossing and well written.