(4) YA While grieving the death of her grandmother, offbeat Julie befriends Clark, an outcast with troubles of his own. Hoping to soothe her pain, Julie and a reluctant Clark call upon spirits with a Ouija board, but their mystical meddling opens a dangerous supernatural can of worms. An eerie tension permeates this story's lush Hollywood landscape, but Julie's detached narration isn't always convincing.

Reviewer: Jessica Tackett MacDonald

(3) YA Pen, her lover Hex, and the others, holed up in Pen's Los Angeles house since the events of Love in the Time of Global Warming, are forced to flee on an enchanted ship that takes them to a mysterious island with an antler-headed young king. Like its Odyssey-inspired predecessor, this lyrical post-apocalyptic sequel makes intriguing (loose) parallels to Virgil's Aeneid.

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen

(2) YA In this Odyssey-inspired story, after the devastating Earth Shaker, Penelope sets out into the brutal Los Angeles landscape in search of her family. She meets an intriguing boy named Hex who joins her on her journey. Block's imagery is remarkable in this sophisticated melding of post-apocalyptic setting, re-imagined classic, and her signature magical realism.

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2013

(4) YA This prequel to Weetzie Bat introduces thirteen-year-old Louise Bat, lonely and depressed when her father leaves LA for New York. While the story sets up Weetzie to become the girl with glittery punk charm we all know and love, it's missing the edgy quirk and magic of the first book; the lackluster prose will leave hardcore Weetzie fans scratching their bleach-blonde flat-tops.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2012

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Barbara McClintock. Madison Blackberry, a lonely rich girl, envies the dolls in her dollhouse; unlike the members of Madison's own family, the dolls appear to enjoy one another's company. McClintock's detailed black-and-white line drawings show the lovely, very alive-looking dolls in their ornate surroundings. The slim, illustrated volume is a bit short for middle graders; younger readers may have trouble with the description-heavy text.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2010

(2) YA Block puts her own spin on werewolves in this romantic thriller. On Liv's thirteenth birthday, her mother brought home a dead wolf as a hunting trophy. Since then, seventeen-year-old Liv has been fighting to contain her bouts of rage and her wild desires. Mysteries and murders sustain suspense while haunted houses and the deep, dark woods provide an aptly eerie atmosphere.

Reviewer: Lauren Adams | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2010

(2) YA Sweet, vulnerable high schooler Emily wishes she was more like flawless beauty Charlotte. Meanwhile, after nearly a century as a wealthy, glamorous vampire, Charlotte wants only to be an imperfect teenage girl. The dramatic narrative blends elements of gothic romance with a Weetzie Bat–like setting. Offering sex, love, glamour, and danger, the book will be gobbled like candy by teen readers.

Reviewer: Lauren Adams | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2010

(4) YA Thirteen-year-old Bee doesn't feel like she fits in and begins to wonder if she's a changeling. She befriends, and brings together, geeky Haze, who thinks he's an alien, and overweight Sarah, who believes she's a reincarnated slave girl. The love story is touching, but Block's particular blend of fantasy and realism is, unexpectedly, a bit less magical than usual here.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander

(2) YA This three-part collection includes forty-five autobiographical poems. Part one details Block's teenage years; part two follows her as an adult; part three contains "Love Poems for Girls." Readers will welcome advice from someone who not only understands their pain but also comes out a survivor. Block's poetry embraces the dark and the light: her heartfelt advice acknowledges both roses and thorns.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2008

(3) YA In her trademark sensuous language, Block presents nine short-story snapshots of girls on the cusp of love, sex, self-awareness, and womanhood. A master of juxtaposition, Block sets vividly fluid language and imagery against stark realities for powerful effect ("They would have stayed here all night in spite of the dangers--snakes, coyotes, rapists, goblins"). Edgy dreamers will happily go with Block's flow.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(2) YA In this free-verse novel, teen actress Psyche falls in love with Eros. Greek deities easily make themselves at home in Block's LA, a city filled with beauty and tragedy of mythic proportions. Like the myths it reinvents, this hallucinatory story is over the top and full of darkness yet bright with the possibility of transformation.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2006

(2) YA Teenage siblings Lex and Marina have always been close, but their closeness goes too far one night. Young adults may not get all the book's allusions to T. S. Eliot, but they will understand that the siblings' relationship is loving, not abusive or perverted. Block hedges her bets with a surprise ending; nevertheless, this exploration of tenderness, passion, and despair is ultimately a haunting love story.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2003

(2) YA Covering familiar ground, Block revisits dying-artist-father/starving-daughter territory and comes up with an involving coming-of-age romance. Those not seriously addicted to her stories may find this latest novel delivers too pure a dose of her distinctive themes, characters, conflicts, and stylistic hooks; devoted and insatiable junkies, however, will enjoy the rush.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2001

(3) YA Image-rich and narratively oblique, Block's re-imagined fairy tales exist both in her sensuous, dangerous vision of L.A. and in a misty wish-fulfillment world of cozy beds and natural scents. Her style ("The girl was nightmare. Young young young. Silver white. Perfect. Untorn. Perfect"), once groundbreaking, here occasionally parodies itself, but the whirlwind incoherence and literary naïveté can still enchant.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam

(4) YA Two high school girls, one a steely dark-haired aspiring moviemaker, the other a fragile blond dreamer, form an intense friendship, which acts as a lifeline when they get sucked into the soulless Hollywood scene. As usual, Block's glittery descriptions are out in full force, and adolescents will probably groove on all the high drama, although it often goes over the top to become almost corny.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann

(2) YA When eleven-year-old Barbie, a child model, is molested by a photographer, her mother tells her "life is full of problems." In the second part of the book, sixteen-year-old Barbie meets Griffin, another model assaulted by the same photographer. Throughout, a petulant fairy named Mab serves as Barbie's surrogate mother, sister, and friend in Block's intoxicating mix of realism and fantasy.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 1998