Pretty Dead by Francesca Lia Block
3.25 stars
Reasons for reading: I've liked her other books, cool cover, YA Challenge
Description:
"Even if I wanted to die for someone, it wouldn't be that easy. They just keep dying for me.
Something is happening to Charlotte Emerson. Like the fires that are ravaging the hills of L.A., it consumes her from the inside out. Something to do with the tear in her enviably perfect nails. The way she feels when she's with the brooding, magnetic Jared. The blood rushing once again to her cheeks and throughout her veins. For Charlotte is a vampire, witness to almost a century's worth of death and destruction. But not since she was a human girl has mortality touched her.
Until now."
First line: "Teenage girls are powerful creatures."
My thoughts: Another lushly written book by Block. It's not much more than a novella, but her seductive writing and the fact that it's different from today's Twilight schlock vampire lore makes it worthwhile. It is for an older teen and adult audience, as her books tend to be, it's not for tweens.
I was a bit creeped out by the possibly inappropriate relationship between Charlotte and her twin brother (although I could have been reading that in where it didn't belong). And while the ending was interesting and a bit of a twist, I wasn't entirely sold - there were some holes in how it happened, I thought.
My favourite part was the section where Charlotte writes about her century of life for Jared, describing the sights and sounds of every era, from the 20's up until the 80's. I thought she captured the events very well. I also enjoyed the description of Charlotte's house full of "beautiful old things" that she's collected like vintage couture and perfume bottles.
A quick read, a nice change from the usual vampire stuff, and full of poetic prose.
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