Beyond the Pale Motel

Beyond The Pale Motel is one of Block's rare adult-oriented novels. The story centers around thirty-six-year-old Catt. She's a sensitive, loving, maternal, and frankly quite needy woman who's a former party girl and addict (sober over a decade). She's stylish too (as most all F.L.B. characters are) and works as a hair stylist with her long-time best friend Bree. Married to a rock musician who's away on tour a lot, Catt spends most of her time at work, at the gym socializing with her close friends, and babysitting her god-son and Bree's eleven-year-old son Skylar. Catt is undeniably fragile, but with the people she loves constantly surrounding her, she's able to keep it together and lead a content existence.

Unlike a lot of other books by Queen F.L.B., this one is much darker than usual and without the lush and magical elements she's so great at and well-known for. See, Catt's world begins to crash around her in Beyond The Pale Motel. Not only does her husband (with whom she's been desperate to have a baby) leave her to be with a young starlet pregnant with his child, but there's an apparent serial killer on the loose in her area of Los Angeles, and he seems to be after pretty blondes with an uncanny resemblance to Bree. Using sex with a string of men as a form of comfort and misplaced validation, Catt begins to lose her grip on her emotions as well as sobriety, which threatens her friendship with Bree and all comes together to intertwine with the serial killer case.

Beyond The Pale Motel is filled to the brim with one heck of an engaging story. Like I mentioned earlier, the book is geared toward an adult crowd, and for good reason. While the prose is Block's usual glittery gorgeous goodness, it's also significantly more mature in nature, both because of the subject matter dealing with a terrifying serial killer, and the frequent and detailed sexual antics of the main character. I probably wouldn't recommend this one to those under the age of fourteen, but I don't really think it's inappropriate for teens over that age. Block did an excellent job of delving into the grim topic of an active serial killer, and I found the mystery of the killer's identity to be titillating and uncomfortable (in a good way). There are a handful of characters she leads you to second-guess and I thought the identity reveal was both satisfying and realistic - realistic in the sense that her use of red herrings was completely on point.

I'm going to give Beyond The Pale Motel four stars, for being hauntingly beautiful, daring and alluring. I think Francesca Lia Block is a great writer for young girls and women to read, and so not only am I highly recommending Beyond The Pale Motel, but I recommend you check out her other works as well if you haven't already.