I like Francesca Lia Block's work. Here she took a story I wouldn't normally be interested in and made it beautiful and something worth reading. Two girls, obviously Violet and Claire, each with their own personality tell their stories that greatly contrast one another.

Ms. Block easily ranks among my 10 top most frequently re-visited authors. Stories like _Ecstasia_ and the Weetzie Bat books capture, better than memory, what it was like to be desperately alive and in love, before we grew up and the world turned mundane. _Violet & Claire_ should have sparkled, but somehow it didn't. She captures that adolescent voice, perhaps too well. The novel ends up reading like an old high school diary--idealized and self-important, interesting only to the narrator.

Release planned for Friday, February 20, 2004 at Parking Lot Behind Tattoo Art & More in Waterloo, Ontario Canada.