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.