Starred Review ALA Booklist (Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)

Starred Review The beloved star of Block's Weetzie Bat (1989) is back in this charming prequel that finds her age 13 the seventh grade, which is like "the bad kind of Wonderland." Her beloved dad, Charlie Bat, has decamped for New York after one fight too many with her mother, former starlet Brandy Lyn. Devastated, the woman attempts suicide only to be rescued by a mysterious young man who will loom large in Weetzie's life. In the meantime, our girl begins receiving mysterious messages that may change her life r good or for ill. Weetzie may be younger (and called by her real name, Louise!), but her magical milieu of Los Angeles remains the same: a city where stars leave their handprints in theater courtyards and sunsets are like pink smog. Block's new novel is an intoxicating mix of mystery, fantasy, and romance told in her signature poetic style and peopled by guardian angels, witches, a goddess, and a demon. Yet all is rooted in a sometimes dark reality of a sensitive young girl who desperately misses her father and is the object of scorn at school. There is hope in new friendships and, as in all of Block's books, there is love, which may be a dangerous angel but is also a life-saving and affirming force to be reckoned with. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The continued, ardent admiration for the YA cornerstone Weetzie Bat justifies the intense marketing blitz planned for this prequel.

Horn Book (Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

This prequel to Weetzie Bat introduces thirteen-year-old Louise Bat, lonely and depressed when her father leaves L.A. 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.

Kirkus Reviews

Does this failed prequel to the Phoenix Award–winning Weetzie Bat (1989) at least succeed as a standalone novel? It's 1975, and 13-year-old Louise Bat is mourning the death of her parents' marriage. In a first-person voice that breaks any possibility of the magical realism that made the original Dangerous Angels series so powerful, Weetzie explores the scariness of her apartment complex. At school, she forms an outcasts club with anorexic Lily and (requisite for Block) gay best friend Bobby, having friends can protect her only so much from bathroom graffiti and gum in her hair. Worse, the mean girls of junior high have nothing on the scary witchlike inhabitants of unit 13: purple-eyed Hypatia Wiggins and her nasty, Jayne Mansfield–loving daughter Annabelle (any possible connection to Weetzie Bat's purple-eyed, Jayne Mansfield–wannabe witch, Vixanne Wigg, is left undeveloped). But perhaps Weetzie has a guardian angel at both home and school: Winter, Annabelle's brother. Is it Winter who's leaving her the notes that show her L.A. at its most sparkly, mysterious and flavorful? Inexplicably, Weetzie's story concludes by cutting off any possibility of magic in this realism. A dreamlike tale of bullying and coping that owes slightly too much to nostalgia to work. (Fiction. 12-15)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this prequel to her genre-shifting 1989 debut Weetzie Bat, Block peels back the glittering surface of that hip teen fairy tale to reveal a heartfelt portrait of the artist as a grieving seventh-grader. After Louise-s father abruptly decamps for New York City, she must cope with her mother-s depression, a clique of mean girls, and the sinister family in Unit 13 of the Starlight Condominiums, where she lives. An attractive older boy-possibly a guardian angel-offers help and solace, as do two new friends from school, who are outcasts as well. As anonymous notes propel Louise on a mystery tour of her beloved hometown, Los Angeles, magic shimmers ever brighter. By the novel-s end Louise leaves her given name behind and begins to grow into Weetzie, the girl who can spin pain into gold by always seeing beauty, -no matter how bad things get.- Newcomers and longtime fans alike will find much to savor in this nuanced meditation on what is lost, and what is gained, in the process of becoming an artist. Ages 14-up. Agent: Lydia Wills LLC. (Feb.)

School Library Journal (Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)

Gr 6-9 Back in 1989, readers fell in love with a whimsical teen named Weetzie. But in the eponymous seminal young adult novel (Harper Collins), Weetzie was glamorous, open-minded, artistic, and whimsical. In Pink Smog , Block introduces readers to a 13-year-old Weetzie, back when her mom was still calling her Louise. When her dad leaves for New York, the young protagonist decides to start living differently. No small feat when you're living in L.A. with an alcoholic mother. She befriends two outcasts, crushes on a mysterious guy who seems to know a lot about her absent father, and suspects a creepy neighbor is doing some serious damage to her life through voodoo. The story has an ethereal feel to it, with the flavor of Weetzie's world taking precedence over the plotline. In the early '90s, Weetzie was Teen Lit's alternative princess, and Pink Smog aims to introduce a new generation to her fantastical world. It remains to be seen whether today's teens will be as enchanted with it. Emily Chornomaz, Camden County Library System, NJ