Violet is moody, brilliant, forceful and a visionary; Claire is light, airy, dreamy and innocent. These two are drawn together from the first pages of Francesca Lia Block’s Violet & Claire.
First we meet 17 year old Violet, whose wealthy life in Beverly Hills is boring, empty and consumed with classic films. Her narrative starts off as the rantings of a spoiled angry teen, but soon we see the artistic, driven young woman underneath the Goth look. She’s searching for a material for the screenplay she is writing and when she notices Claire at school, she believes she’s found her star. Violet’s intensity saturates her portion of the story as she forms an powerful connection to Claire and pushes relentlessly forward on making her film dreams come true.
Halfway through we turn to Claire, whose gauzy, ethereal and sensory-laden perspective of the world feels dreamy after spending the first half of the story in Violet’s mind. The girl we get to know is fragile and searching for true love and faeries and is in every way opposite of her best friend Violet. Claire’s yearnings lead her to fall for her poetry teacher as she chases the ghost of her absent father and hopes for someone to understand and complete her.
As the story unfolds in the strikingly beautiful and darkly magical city of Los Angeles, each girl gets what she thinks she wants. But soon these fulfilled dreams turn sour, and Violet and Claire become painfully estranged from each other and empty within themselves. In the poetic finale they come together again under the starry desert sky, realizing fully that their friendship restores the balance missing in their lives.
- Posted by Cori