Echo by Francesca Lia Block

For anyone who’s ever read Francesca Lia Block before, you’ll know what to expect here. Riddled with teenage angst, fairytale settings and dense, poetic language, Echo provides another glimpse into the mind of tortured, restless adolescence. As always, Block’s novel stands outside any particular genre; is it fantasy or drama? Poetry or prose? Magic realism or something else entirely? As always, her trademark style is the use of her intoxicating language, which again defies description, but is best compared to fantasist Patricia McKillip. Like McKillip, reading Block for the first time is always a little confusing, for the language is layered so thickly over narrative and character that it’s difficult to keep track of what’s happening and who it’s happening to. This is especially true in the case of Echo… Read the rest.