How to (Un)cage a Girl - Softcover

Block, Francesca Lia

3.76

940 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 006135838X ISBN 13: 9780061358388

Publisher: HarperTeen, 2010

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In order to uncage the girl within, you have to love her, heal her, and set her free.

There are moments every girl knows: The pain of wanting to fi t in. The joy of being consumed by love. The shame of not feeling at home in your body. The strength in learning you're beautiful. Francesca Lia Block follows the journey from girlhood to womanhood in this soaring three-part poetry collection. Exploring those unspoken feelings and words—the thorny, sparkling moments that chain us to ourselves—Block gives a startlingly personal voice to girls and women everywhere.

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About the Author:

Francesca Lia Block, winner of the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award, is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling books, including Weetzie Bat; the book collections Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books and Roses and Bones: Myths, Tales, and Secrets; the illustrated novella House of Dolls; the vampire romance novel Pretty Dead; and the gothic werewolf novel The Frenzy. Her work is published around the world.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 9 Up—These poems traverse the steep climb from girlhood to womanhood while unearthing the hard truths hidden within this journey. Divided into three parts—"years at the asylum," "in the hair of the toxic blonde," and "love poems for girls"—the collection touches on anorexia, self-love and loathing, parental relationships, superficiality, losing one's virginity, rape, and love and loss. Block celebrates womanhood, but not in a bubblegum, girl-power way. Plathian symbols abound, from pervasive father issues to Nazi comparisons to insane asylums, real and imagined. The poems feel simultaneously autobiographical and universal. While the death of the narrator's father in "a myth of love for girls" colors her search for a partner, the universal struggle of women to escape or find their father's image in future relationships is aptly captured. The final selections cross into the territory of life lessons learned well beyond the teen experience and perhaps ring too much like motherly advice, but the raw authenticity of the narrator's voice throughout overshadows any later departure. Teenage girls, especially sophisticated, angst-filled poetry readers, will devour this insightful and powerful collection.—Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT
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