After two disastrously dull urban fantasies, Francesca Lia Block is dipping back into the series that first made her career. 
 But don't expect quite the same things from Weetzie Bat and Co. -- "Pink Smog" is a prequel, not a sequel. This slender novel tells the story of how an awkward teenage girl became the hipster Weetzie Bat, and the painful road that leads to one's own identity. The problem is that it spends too much time meandering in place rather than sending Weetzie forward. 
 Louise Bat doesn't want to be called "Louise"; she wants to be called Weetzie. She also wants a life completely different from her own -- her body is at the ugly-duckling stage, her school is full of bullies and mean girls, her mother is a reclusive alcoholic, and her dad has left them. And before long, Weetzie realizes that her father -- and her life -- have never been as wonderful as she thought. 
 At school, she makes friends with anorexic Lily and gay Bobby. Away from home, she follows a series of nursery-rhyme riddles. And at home, she simultaneously falls in love with the beautiful, mysterious boy named Winter (who may be an angel), and finds that he's under the malign influence of his insane sister Annabelle. The only way to break free of her old life is to find who she truly is... 
 As always, Francesca Lia Block's prose in "Pink Smog" is simply sublime, filled with hauntingly sensual descriptions ("It looked as though mermaids cut silver paths beneath the surface. There was a fat, mottled moon in the sky") and lots of glittering, colorful descriptions of Los Angeles. And she imbues Weetzie's coming-of-age with a painful awareness -- bullying, divorce, first love and first loss of that love. 
 However, that coming-of-age story still feels rather thin -- most of it is Weetzie eventually coming-to-terms with her "weirdness" and hanging out with her friends. In fact, we spend a lot more time wandering around aimlessly in the high school than we do with the mysterious riddles or the creepy siblings in Apartment 13. Every coming-of-age young-adult story has high-school woes, and they bog down the fascinating subplots (such as a beautiful mystery boy controlled via voodoo dolls by his witchy sister). 
 And while we spend the whole book in Weetzie's head, I never really understood her feelings and actions. She drifts around in a cloud of muted emotions and memories, making hipster clothes and thinking about Marilyn Monroe -- and when something shocking or upsetting happens, she comes across as mildly perturbed. 
 And her friends Lily and Bobby are never really explored very much, and are hand-waved away at the story's end. While this serves the underlying message of the story -- that if you are true to yourself, you are the only one you will ever need -- it feels a bit lazy. 
 "Pink Smog" is a beautifully written that shows the flowering of Weetzie Bat, but Francesca Lia Block seems uncomfortable with writing a book set in the character's high school years.