Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block

★★★

" 'What sexual preference do you hope she has?' 'Happiness - isn't that cool?' "

Weetzie Bat is a free-spirited young girl growing up in the late 1980s that doesn’t have very many friends at school until she meets Dirk. After Dirk tells Weetzie that he is gay, the two search for boyfriends, which they refer to as “ducks.”  When Weetzie fines a magic lamp, she makes three wishes that come true shortly after: a boyfriend for her named My Secret Agent Lover Man, a boyfriend for Dirk named Duck, and a house for them all to live in.  They are all happy together, but Weetzie wants a baby and My Secret Agent Lover Man objects and instead wants to focus on his career making movies.  Weetzie, Dirk, and Duck decide to all make a baby so they won’t know who the father is.  My Secret Agent Lover Man leaves after he learns of the plan and Weetzie gives birth to a baby girl that they name Cherokee.  A woman the group refers to as “Lanka witch” shows up with a baby that she claims is My Secret Agent Lover Man’s daughter.  The four friends name the girl Witch Baby and decide to raise her with Cherokee.

I read this book a few days ago and I still can’t decide what I think about it.  It was very different and disturbing at times, but the author wrote in an simple, but beautiful and engaging style.  I appreciated that the author was able to step outside of the normal comfort zone and write a book that did not follow traditional lifestyles of expectations of the characters.  I think that aspect that bothered me the most about this book was that the characters did not give any thought to life-changing decisions that they were making.  I kept thinking of how the four characters were going to be responsible, both financially and mentally, for raising two very small children.  It was a very unique book and I would recommend it to older readers with caution.