fairy tale, short stories, feminism

Carter doesn't really add much to the source fairy tales — her settings are more or less the same, her characters just as archetypal, the sexiness and bloodiness just marginally more visible than in Grimm. The prose here is relentlessly baroque, marzipan-like, cloying, a surfeit of Gothicness that I probably would have liked when I was 15. And yet there's a samey feel to it, too, produced by the re-use of a few images — roses, jewels, aristocratic men who smell funny. My favourite was probably Puss in Boots, written in an alleycat idiom that made me smile. I am looking forward to reading more Carter, though — I've really enjoyed one or two of her short stories in anthologies and I think the fairy tale theme dragged this book down for me. ( )

I liked most of the stories. The first one (which is the title story) I didn't really care for, but the others I thought were pretty good. This book is definitely entertaining if you are into horrific fairy tale retellings. Her writing didn't blow me away, thought it was kind of modern and basic, but good basic. ( )

This collection of 10 stories is dark, very dark. Each of them takes a folk tale or fairy tale that you know the outline of and subverts it. In each there is a significant element of transformation or things being between states. Is she describing a wolf or a human is a typical ambiguity in these. Things are not necessarily what they appear.
There is quite a lot of blood and a reasonable amount of sex - be that implied or actual. It's not necessarily out of keeping, just be warned that these fairy tale retellings are not at all bright and shiny - expect to go to the dark places in the human psyche.
I liked the way that the collection was grouped such that the same story got reworked more than once with a different outcome and from a different perspective. You can tell Beauty and the Beast such that Beauty wins the Beast and he becomes a man, but why not tell it the other way round?
Excellent, but not exactly what you might call bedtime reading. ( )

I don't usually rate books that I do not finish, but the two stories I read were that bad so I am opening an exception. I read two stories and a half and that was all I could take.

This book is known for darker versions of fairy tales, but I think the correct word is disgusting. Not dark exactly. I think there is a difference.
I also heard that this is supposedly feminist, but after reading about a girl getting raped with the approval of another woman and another girl happily killing her grandmother I was like the famous slow blink guy gif. Honestly, do people even know what the word feminist means? Because every time a book is marketed like that there seems to be women hating on other women.
The writing was a mess. The stories I read until the end were so short that it wasn't as noticeable, but the one I left unfinished jumped from first person to second to third in each paragraph. Wth was that? Pick one! The sentences are so long and confusing that I quickly forgot what the author was on about. All I know is that it wasn't anything important.

Unfortunately, I own this book and it does have a pretty cover. I need to get rid of it though. In the meantime I will just hide it somewhere so I don't have to look at it and get angry.
( )