by Francesca Lia Block
The Waters and the Wild is a strange little book where the protagonist, Bee, comes to believe that she is actually a fairy changeling. She get's bad grades, is left handed, and feels like an outsider. In that sense, Bee certainly seems to qualify although that would mean many teenagers qualify. Her two friends, Sarah and Haze, also feel like outsiders and identify themselves as the reincarnated slave girl and a half alien, respectively. What's not clear in the beginning, however, is whether any of them is anything other than a semi-normal teen.
That ambiguity of purpose - is it a story about an actual changeling or is it just a metaphor the character uses- is one that Block fosters to good effect. There is a dream like quality to the prose that only half resolves in the end. It was a quick read and had Block's trademark beautiful use of language and myth to create a richly textured sense of character. At 113 pages long, why not read it?
No comments:
Post a Comment