I Was a Teenage Fairy
Ratings5
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings5
Average rating4.2
Maybe Mab was real. Maybe not. Maybe Mab was the fury. Maybe she was the courage. Maybe later on she was the sex...A tiny fairy winging her way through the jasmine-scented L.A. night. A little girl caught in a grown-up glitz-and-glitter world of superstars and supermodels. A too beautiful boy with a secret he can never share...From the author of Weetzie Bat comes a magical, mesmerizing tale of transformation. This is the story of Barbie Marks, who dreams of being the one behind the Cyclops eye of the camera, not the voiceless one in front of it; who longs to run away to New York City where she can be herself, not some barley flesh-and-blood version of the plastic doll she was named after. It is the story of Griffin Tyler, whose androgynous beauty hides the dark pain he holds inside. And finally it is the story of Mab, a pinkie-sized, magenta-haired, straight-talking fairy, who may or may not be real but who helps Barbie and Griffin uncover the strength beneath the pain, and who teaches that love--like a sparkling web of light spinning around our bodies and our souls--is what can heal even the deepest scars.
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I'm not in love with this book. This doesn't mean it's a bad book. Often, the books I end up loving the most are the ones that I have lukewarm feelings for at first. Six months down the road, we'll see if I love this book.
But let's talk about what I do love about I Was A Teenage Fairy. The prose is wonderful. I love the personifications of LA and the San Fernando Valley as her little sister, and New York as their cousin. I love the world that Block creates: it's not a magical world, but there is one magical element in this reality, and that is Mab, the fairy that Barbie can see. Mab is sort of an antithetical fairy; she's unpleasant, she's kind of mean, she has pointed teeth, she's obsessed with sex and men. She becomes a respite for both Barbie and Griffin in a world that feels so isolating and objectifying, that glosses over the bad stuff. She also serves as a sort of coping mechanism for these two children who have been molested – in some ways, she's the voice inside them that never lets them become complacent, never lets them slip into numbness. If you took Mab out of the story, we might have exactly the same story, except these characters would be all alone in their worlds and they might never move forward. Mab is the thing that connects them all, makes them feel less alone, moves them.
Something else that I really enjoyed about this particular book was the way that Barbie pushed back at being an object – she always wanted to be behind the camera, looking out, rather than in front of the camera, being looked at. I think that's a really important and subtle move that makes Barbie more than an acted upon character, and ultimately, gives her the power to become who she wants to be and face her past head-on. Griffin doesn't have that desire, and so remains a pretty unchanging character even as Mab takes him on adventures and sets him up with a soulmate of sorts. Barbie has an agency that Griffin doesn't.
What I love dearly about Francesca Lia Block's books in general is that she depicts children and humans as deeply flawed people who find that, despite everything, they are capable of love and that they are capable of being loved. The idea of the nuclear family isn't even considered in Block's worlds; whatever arrangement brings you comfort and love is what is right, and that is absolutely the reason to read any of Block's books (but especially Weetzie Bat). Though I can't put my finger on what makes me give this particular book 3 stars rather than 4, it's still wonderful and it's worth the afternoon it will take to read it through.
Another book borrowed from the library and devoured very quickly. Absolutely stunning and left me speechless. A story about a girl, who's trapped in a world of “giants” and how she learns how to become her own woman with the help of a fairy.
