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A review by poisonenvy
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Angela Carter is an... Interesting author. She switches between tenses and POV (sometimes jumping from first person to third person within the same paragraph) apparently without rhyme or reason (I mean, I imagine there's some reason; I have not done a close enough read for any story to know that for sure). A lot of the time I came out of my first read of a story (none of them have been given second reads just yet) not knowing exactly what happened. Some of her lines are breathtakingly beautiful, some of them are very funny. She's an author who likely needs to be read with fairly close attention. Anyway, I enjoyed this collection a lot.
"The Bloody Chamber" 4*
Look, Bluebeard is my favourite fairy tale. This runs pretty close to the original fairytale, with some key differences (I had, for some time, considered writing a paper on what these differences are. That paper topic ended up getting cut though since there are other papers in this class I'd rather write more)
"The Courtship of Mr Lyon" 4*
This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling which I enjoyed quite a lot.
"The Tiger's Bride" 4*
A lot of the same themes of the precious story; is also a Beauty and the Beast retelling. Also something I liked a lot.
"Puss-in-Boots" 5*
10/10. A+ story. The perfect amount of asshole licking. Bravo.
"The Erl-King" 3.5*
This was one of the stories that flips pronouns and perspective pretty confusingly (all of them do it to some extent, this one felt like the worst offender). I'm not super sure what happened here. It probably requires a second read, which I'll get to eventually.
"Snow Child" ????
A Snow White retelling. One that reminded me a lot about Kaori Yuki's Snow White retelling. Anyway, my entire review can be summed up in three words:
What. The. Fuck.
"The Lady of the House of Love" 4.5*
You know, I'm not 100% sure I know what went on here but I'm here for the vibes and the vibes are immaculate. (Might possibly get worked into a Dracula paper about Monster Theory as applied to vampires about female sexuality)
"The Werewolf" 4*
Little Red Riding Hood retelling 1. It was alright. Pretty straight forward. On the docket for a paper I might write in conjunction with female persecution, the witch trials, and Elizabeth Bathory. We'll see how that goes.
"The Company of Wolves" 3*
Little Red Riding Hood retelling 2. Trigger warning for weird sexual assault stuff.
"Wolf-Alice" 3.5*
This just gave me Assassin's Quest vibes. I'm here for it. Likely requires a second reading.
"The Bloody Chamber" 4*
Look, Bluebeard is my favourite fairy tale. This runs pretty close to the original fairytale, with some key differences (I had, for some time, considered writing a paper on what these differences are. That paper topic ended up getting cut though since there are other papers in this class I'd rather write more)
"The Courtship of Mr Lyon" 4*
This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling which I enjoyed quite a lot.
"The Tiger's Bride" 4*
A lot of the same themes of the precious story; is also a Beauty and the Beast retelling. Also something I liked a lot.
"Puss-in-Boots" 5*
10/10. A+ story. The perfect amount of asshole licking. Bravo.
"The Erl-King" 3.5*
This was one of the stories that flips pronouns and perspective pretty confusingly (all of them do it to some extent, this one felt like the worst offender). I'm not super sure what happened here. It probably requires a second read, which I'll get to eventually.
"Snow Child" ????
A Snow White retelling. One that reminded me a lot about Kaori Yuki's Snow White retelling. Anyway, my entire review can be summed up in three words:
What. The. Fuck.
"The Lady of the House of Love" 4.5*
You know, I'm not 100% sure I know what went on here but I'm here for the vibes and the vibes are immaculate. (Might possibly get worked into a Dracula paper about Monster Theory as applied to vampires about female sexuality)
"The Werewolf" 4*
Little Red Riding Hood retelling 1. It was alright. Pretty straight forward. On the docket for a paper I might write in conjunction with female persecution, the witch trials, and Elizabeth Bathory. We'll see how that goes.
"The Company of Wolves" 3*
Little Red Riding Hood retelling 2. Trigger warning for weird sexual assault stuff.
"Wolf-Alice" 3.5*
This just gave me Assassin's Quest vibes. I'm here for it. Likely requires a second reading.