Boekverslag Francesca Lia Block

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Titel:	Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books
Auteur:	Francesca Lia Block
Jaar van uitgave:	1998
Aantal pagina's:	496

Auteur:	Francesca Lia Block
Populaire titels:	1998Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books (1)

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Francesca Lia Block,
Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books, 1998

Summary
(BOOK ONE, WEETZIE BAT) Weetzie Bat is a young girl in Los Angeles. She is kind of weird looking and she hasn’t got very much friends. She is a colourful girl. She meets a boy called Dirk. He is at her school. He is the most popular guy. All the girls love him. And they go out together and go to the beach or for a drink, or ice cream, to some places in town. They drive in Dirk's car and talk a lot. Dirk tells Weetzie he is gay. Weetzie likes that: now they can help each other find a boyfriend. They call Boys Ducks. So they are on Duck hunting together. Weetzie got an idea of her perfect boyfriend. She calls him her Secret Agent Lover Man. Dirk and Weetzie are practically always together. Dirk lives with his grandmother (she is called Fifi) because his parents died when he was small. Weetzie lives with her mother. Her parents are divorced; her dad lives in New York. Charlie Bat visits her a lot. They go to the Tick Tock Tea Room for tea with honey and blueberry muffins. Weetzie's father still loves her mother but he never pays her a visit. Then Weetzie gets this lamp from Fifi. It is a beautiful one. When she tries to read what it says a genie comes out. His name is Lanky Lizards. He tells her she can make three wishes. First she wishes for World peace. But the genie can’t do this. It’s out of his league. Than she says: ”I wish a Duck for Dirk, My Secret Agent Lover Man for me, and a beautiful little house for all of us where we can live happily ever after.” And her wishes are granted. Dirk calls her to tell a good and a sad thing. 1.Grandmother Fifi had died and she left them her house. 2. Dirk has met this gorgeous boy called Duck (Isn’t that weird?). Weetzie feels very upset because she thinks it is her fault Grandmother Fifi had died. Dirk and Duck and Weetzie are going to live in Fife’s cottage. When Weetzie is at work (she’s a waitress) a man asks her if she wants to play in his movie. He is called My Secret Agent Lover Man. Weetzie thinks it’s a joke. But it is true. He is the most beautiful guy. And (of course) they fall in love. Weetzie wants a baby. But My Secret Agent Lover Man doesn’t. He is afraid of putting a kid in this screwed up world. Then Weetzie and Dirk and Duck are going to make one. So they will never know who the baby’s father will be. When they tell My Secret Agent Lover Man he gets angry and confused. He goes away. A beautiful girl is born. Her hair is very blonde and her skin is like a little angel. They call her Cherokee. And My Secret Agent Lover Man returns. Weetzie is perfectly happy. One day a witch comes. They call her a Lanka Witch. She is a very powerful witch and she makes My Secret Agent Lover Man sick because he doesn’t want to talk to her. Some time later a little baby is on their door. The Lanka witch is called Vixanne Wigg. She and My Secret Agent Lover Man slept together when he was gone. Weetzie loves the baby. Everyone calls her Witch Baby. It is a strange, and very beautiful child. She has got purple eyes and black hair. She is small. Duck and Dirk are always together. But Duck feels weird and he’s got those freaky dreams. He is going away and Dirk is going to look for him. And he finds him. Then they know they belong together. Love is a Dangerous Angel. It makes you feel different and happy but also strange things and feeling fill your head and body. And people can be very confused when they feel thing like that but still it is great.
-There are four books to go. I’ll do them very very very short.
(BOOK TWO, WITCH BABY) Witch Baby is a weird girl. She is not like other kids or other people. She is mostly alone. She feels like she doesn’t belong in the cute house where they live and her almost-mom Weetzie is too different from her. She feels like nobody loves her and her almost-sister Cherokee isn’t nice to her either. Witch baby is obsessed by disasters, great problems in the world: Wars, fires and tornados. She cuts those creepy pictures from the newspapers. Her real daddy, My Secret Agent Lover Man, did that too when he was a kid. He tells Witch Baby about a globe lamp he used to have as a boy. He always dreamt he lived inside of it and made the world better. Witch Baby buys a globe lamp for her father and puts it in his room in secret. With an article about some radioactive-stuff-thing. But he thinks it’s from Weetzie. Than she knows she is really different. She plays drums. Very good. She feels free and good when she can make her music. Witch Baby wishes for an angel to come. Someone who understands her and who she can play with. And then, when she is at the set of her family’s new movie, she sees a boy her age. His name is Angel Juan. They play the whole day and sleep together in the grass. They don’t talk. They both know it. They belong together. He calls her Nina Bruja. But one day Angel Juan is gone. Weetzie tells her he has returned to Mexico. Witch Baby feels terrible. She feels lost. But she gets to know her family and learns how much they love her after she ran away.
(BOOK THREE, CHEROKEE BAT AND THE GOAT GUYS) Weetzie and My Secret Agent Lover Man and Dirk and Duck are in Africa to make another movie. The ‘kids’ are home alone. And a close family friend, Coyote, takes care of them from a little distance. Cherokee and Raphael (Her since-they-were-very-very-small-kids-boyfriend) and Witch Baby are getting along very well. But Witch Baby misses Angel Juan dreadfully. At her birthday he returns. They are just so perfectly, totally happy! Cherokee has made magical wings for Witch Baby. When Witch Baby wears them when she drums it’s like she flies away. Raphael plays guitar and Angel Juan bass. They form a band. They call themselves “The Goat Guys”. They practice a lot and then they start to perform in public. Cherokee makes fur pants for Raphael. Fur from living goats. She made it with Coyote and he is an Indian. The fur has got great power. Witch Baby thinks it isn’t fair. Cherokee has made things for all of them except for Angel Juan. She is going to get horns from Coyote. They are really powerful and, because she had stolen them, the magic is black. The Goat Guys become very successful. But it is too much. They live at night and sleep when they haven to go to school. Their performances getting too much too. People get hurt and sick. When Weetzie and My Secret Agent Lover Man and Dirk and Duck return. They fix the house and clean it. Coyote feels guilty because he should have seen things were getting out of control. Everything ends happy.
(BOOK FOUR, MISSING ANGEL JUAN) Angel Juan tells Witch Baby he is going to New York. He is afraid of the strong love he feels inside him. He leaves and short after that, Witch Baby follows him to New York to look for him. She stays in the apartment of (the died) Charlie Bat. Charlie has become a ghost. A little light. Like a firefly. He talks to her and helps her when she is in trouble. In the end she finds Angel Juan (of course). They both learned a lot from being alone in that big city. Witch Baby knows that she can be alone and Angel Juan knows that love isn’t frightening at all.
(BOOK FIVE, BABY BE-BOP) (PART 1) This book is about Dirk. He meets this boy and he is totally in love. But he hasn’t got the guts to tell him. The boy’s name is Pup. Pup and Dirk are super friends. They are always together. But Pup gets a girl with big-swimsuit-model-breasts and Dirk knows Pup is never going to be his friend like he dreams he is. (PART 2) Dirk wants to die. He hates to be different from all the other guys. And then, this woman appears in his room. She tells the story of her life. It turns out she is his great-grandmother. (Fifi’s mom) and she tell him about his grandmother and his parents. He asks her if he is dead too. But she has to disappoint him, he isn’t yet, it isn’t his time to come. Later his father appears. He looks Dirks' age. And then his father, Dirby, starts to tell about his life. And how it was to loose his father (Fifi’s husband) at such a young age. Dirby also tells about how he met Dirk's mom, Just Silver. And after all these stories Dirk isn’t afraid to tell his own story anymore. He meets Duck and they are made for each other (at least that’s how it feels).



Characters
Weetzie Bat: She is very sensitive and free. (And you could say it’s kind of strange she beliefs in fairies and genies but in this book they just exist.) She wants the best for everyone and cares a lot about all the people she loves and about all the people she don’t even know too. She lives her life very happy in her dream-house with her dream-man. Sometimes she is afraid for pain; she wants to ignore it. But she learns it’s better to tell your feeling and listen to other people.
Dirk: His character is very much already described in ‘book five’. In short: Funny, sensitive, smart, gay. He loves boy and had a problem with that.
Cherokee: Sweet girl. She is cool and smart. She is very caring to her friends and would give her life for Raphael. She loves to dance and to make music.
Witch Baby: Weird girl. She is different. She likes to be alone. She doesn’t want anyone to know her feelings. One time, she buried herself in the mud for two weeks and ate the food Cherokee put next to her at night. Witch Baby loves Angel Juan because he is like her.

Theme
Love and Friendship are very very important things in life.
You shouldn’t shame on yourself when you are different from the people around you. (Like Dirk did) Accept yourself like you are.
“Our stories can set us free, Dirk thought. When we set them free.”
It isn’t wrong to feel happy when people are dying somewhere else. Of course it should bother you but you don’t have to feel sad because of it. (You sure don’t help them that way)
The difference between fear and desire, pain and pleasure, breaking out and holding on in a weird world.


Opinion
I loved this book. It was much like ‘A home at the end of the world’. American (clearly, but I like it), about food (is food really so important in American novels?? But it didn’t bother me at all. I just got very hungry from it), and with the gay-thing. (Well, just Dirk and Duck, but still.) And about Cherokee: Weetzie making a baby with three man.. I really got into it. It was not too difficult to read. (But it was thick. 478 pages) It was Magical, Mythic, like fairytales for adults or something. There wasn’t one moment I thougt: ”this can’t be true.” Everything; Fairies, ghosts, witches, genies etc. They were just there.
(And for your information: I searched on the Internet and
‘they said’ this was literature or fiction. My uncle (from who I got it) also said serious book-reviewers were laudatory about it. It is a very well known book there.)
And I’ve started to read it for the second time.