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Summary: Great book ! FLB rocks (again)!
Review: This book is sooo good -- just like EVERYTHING that FLB writes! I wish I had a sassy talking fairy to keep me company, and to help me figure stuff out.... Peace!
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Summary: A beautiful story of belief, truth, darkness, and strength..
Review: I Was a Teenage Fairy tells the story of Barbie, a beautiful, gentle, passive young girl and Mab, a somewhat arrogant, brash but nevertheless adorable and lovely faerie. Their relationship formed when Barbie was a child, desperately calling out to the fae to show themselves to her. Her friendship and conversations with Mab helps her to endure through and cope with the hardships she continually has to face. As a young child, Barbie is forced into the world of modeling, pageants, and glamour by her conceited, shallow, and severely depressed mother, who seems to think the only way to live her dreams is through her daughter's life. While her mother is too controlling, her father remains cold, distant, and detatched, eventually leaving to start a new family. Barbie quietly complies to her mother's dreams of beauty and modeling, while she secretly wishes to be a photographer - on the other side of the lens. Photography takes sinister undertones in this novel - Barbie is molested as a child by a photographer who uses the cover of his occupation to take advantage of young, helpless children. However, with the help of Mab, Barbie and Griffin (another victim of the child molester) are able to put their past and shame behind them, grow stronger and self-assured, and begin a new life of love, freedom, and creative expression. This book is about belief regardless of what others believe, overcoming hardships, letting go of the past, and learning to believe in yourself. I deeply relate to the themes in this book, and imagine it would be a beautiful and inspiring read for anyone interested in indulging in yet another bizarre, glamourous, fantastical, and mesmerizing world combined with darkness and truth that is signature to Block's works.
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Summary: Eghads
Review: eeek. Let me start with Block's writing. It is completly prestentious and skin deep. I have read so many of her books and am yet to like on of them. She makes me feel like she thinks we will fall for her big, overly descriptive words. To tell you the truth, I don't think there's much going on underneath the visuals and words of this story or any of Blocks peices. They are very sad tales with insanely happy ending. They are written to cater the teenage mind, as if the teenage mind is a model wannabe idiot. It seems to me that the author assumes we arn't paying attention to the words... that's my opinion...
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Summary: beautiful
Review: this book was awesome, you have to get it!!! being a francesca lia block fan, i am definitely not disappointed :) this book is mainly about barbie, a beautiful and deep girl who loves nature, a model, who always wanted to be a photographer instead, she gets molested by one of her photographer during her early teenage years. she survived through her mum's constantly trying to control her life, her dad abandoning her by meeting a little pixie/faerie/insect (lol) when she's 16, she meets a guy called todd and his friend griffin, that has gone through the same thing as she has, and they both went to the same photographer before. barbie finds courage and live in the end, this is a really beautiful book, and the writing again, is typical francesca lia block's, lyrical, poetic, enthralling. you cannot put this book down! thanks to this book, i practically failed my exams :p
a must read for especially block fans!!!
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Summary: help finding a mate for gay friend? DUMB BOOK
Review: Really did not like this book. The story is about helping find a boyfriend for the main character's guy friend. This book went into the garbage can. 0 stars
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Summary: I was a teenage fairy, too
Review: This book was amazing! I picked it up in the Library when I was in a mood that made me want to be alone... I liked this book because it shows closure on Barbie's part- read it!
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Summary: Interesting, even for older readers, but...
Review: Based on other reviews written about this young adult novel, one might think of it as surprisingly graphic for readers as young as 13 years old. Upon reading it for oneself though, it is noticeable that, at least until the central character (Barbie Marks) turns 16, descriptions are very mild so as only to give us an idea of what is really going on. Yet, it seems that this slender volume, sitting on young adult shelves, gets caught in an identity crisis, its main themes being sex, drugs, molestation, and family issues, matters not taken lightly by the more conservative in our society as well as not generally thought suitable for children. What is here meant by identity crisis is that Francesca Lia Block gives us a tale that could be societally relevant if it were not wanting more description, more elaboration, and more exploration. The novel is caught between being classified as young adult fiction and something else. That something we cannot say until it is written in more, uninhibited, detail. Then it wouldn't be a children's book anymore, but it could perhaps be a more powerful story with greater impact, more than just a quick glimpse into the shadow side of life.
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Summary: Frail Fairytale
Review: As an adult reader who knows nothing about this author, I kept thinking, "The writing here is very frail, like a novel for young adults." Surprise, it is! And that explains a lot. The story is laid out in a very simplistic way, and what's worse, its tired ideas aren't shaped to build any momentum as the story unfolds. For instance, heroine Barbie was molested by a slimy photographer at age 11 and has understandable misgivings about intimacy. But when she willingly sleeps with a man for the first time, her inhibitions immediatly disappear in a passionate romp before a roaring fire. (Well, there goes that theme.) And did it bother anyone else that Todd, the man in question, is a movie star who's sneaking the 16-year-old Barbie into bars and sleeping with her when she's underage? (Todd also has a frail, big eyed, gay "roommate", another child model. What is with this guy?) Even the title I WAS A TEENAGE FAIRY is off. This isn't a book about a teenage fairy, it's about a teenager who befriends a fairy. (Get it together, people!) And I also hated its underlying message, which is, "All molested children have a chipper little fairy that comes to help them through the bad times." Oh, really? That's sort of like what we heard in the movie A BEAUTIFUL MIND, which essentially said, "You can overcome your schizophrenia with a little will power and the love of a beautiful wife." Ick.
Rating: 
Summary: Fairyland, but not Utopia
Review: In I was a teenage fairy Block conbines brillant and lyrical dscriptive style with dramatic adolecent issues to create a beautyful and realistic story. The issues of sexual abuse and child labor lend a realistic feel to Block's otherwise fanciful and light writing style. The metaphors and imagry she uses is amazing, creating a world so real the reader could step right into it, the highlight of this creativity is her metaphors for describing cities. The characters are realistic, appealing even with their faults. The summary suggests that Griffin plays a role tantamount to that of Barbie but in the actual book he is a supporting character. I found this volume better than her other works because it has a plot her other books have virtualy nonexistent plots. The only complaint I had was that it took to long to develop setting , characters, ect. I was in the second half before I was really grabed by the storyline. But when I got to the point where it ot good I could not put it down, deffinatly worth the wait.
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Summary: Magically Pleasing
Review: Thrown off at first by the context of I Was A Teenage Fairy, I began to believe that this book was for someone younger than me. After giving it a second chance I became intrigued with the majestic imagination of the book and the characters, Barbie and Mab. Block connected the real life events of a spoiled, wealthy, selfish mother and a beautiful lost little girl with a secret friend she has always dreamed of meeting. Mab symbolizes Barbies emotions, fears, curiosities, and love. And within this reading there are many examples of the common struggles of an average teenager. I have now realized that this book is not only enjoyable for all teenagers, many others younger and older can benefit for it just as much.
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