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A tale of vampires told by teen lit’s original bard? Yes, please.

At first glimpse, this book seems something special. The cover, like many of Block’s, has a glossy textural feel, a little tongue in cheek and very slick. One cannot help but think what is inside must be something special, and when it comes to the work of Francesca Lia Block, one would be correct.

Charlotte Emerson is a vampire. Eternally young and beautiful, she is a lonely creature burdened with the ghost of emotions. Her changing may have made her seem like a beautiful creature, but in reality, she is less than what she was, and she is very, very lonely.

For a while, she found solace in a lovely young girl named Emily, who became her companion, though not her confidant. And then something tragic happened to Emily, something that had an unexpected change in Charlotte. It starts with such little things; a torn fingernail, beads of sweat on her forehead. As Charlotte grows closer to Emily’s boyfriend, Jared, she begins to realize that something radical is happening - something that fills her with fear and wild hope, something that makes her emotions real again, makes her more than a ghost of a person. Charlotte Emerson is becoming human. But a girl with a century long past can’t run from it forever, and Charlotte’s past is catching up with her in the form of a dark and alluring man: William Stone Eliot, her maker. And where he goes, death and destruction follows.

Teens may very well have Block to thank for the Teen Lit trend; back in the early days of what has now become one of the few literary realms still growing, Block’s books were ostracized from bookstore children’s departments due to the subject matter she tackled, most notably broken adolescents trying desperately to put themselves back together. Though her Weetzie Bat series established her dreamlike, lyrical writing style, Pretty Dead is a brilliant example of what magical things Block is capable of doing with words. Despite the prose format, the drifty, flirty feel of the novel makes one almost feel as they are experiencing the story through an opium dream. Block’s books are very short - almost novella length - and so the book goes by entirely too quickly. Luckily for the readers, though, she has a fairly decent library of books that are every bit as lovely as this one.

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