A review by wispy_reviews
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Angela Carter’s prose is beautiful, if confusing at times.  She twists these old stories with a sort of dark feminism; her heroines’ sexuality and womanhood is a source of power as much as it is of frustration, and each story approaches these concepts differently.  What’s more, the men in these stories are usually associated with beastliness (not uncommon or unfounded) but many times Carter ends her tales with reconciliation: neither gender is wholly perfect, both sides have their own inherent trauma and neither one is invalidated.  A wonderful takeaway.
I would say the first story of this collection, the book’s namesake, is the strongest of the bunch and is deeply compelling though I greatly enjoyed how the Erl-King was written.
Many of these stories are the same fairy tale rewritten, which is interesting at first but I would have liked to see more variety.
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