this is less of a review than a commentary on my experience reading and rereading this book. i loved this the first time i read it, in 2006. the language, scenes and characters stuck with me for a really long time. even three years later i was able to remember some of carter's beautiful phrases and imagery, and so i decided to read this again.
this time though it felt a little anti-climatic; i didn't experience such deep sympathy with melanie, finn, francie and margaret. it is an intriguing story, and perhaps not knowing what to expect had kept me in rapt attention. (not knowing in the craziest, best possible way! carter creates bizarre scenes in the theater, in the garden, around the kitchen table that are superbly described, even as they are strangely unfinished, or maybe even as i was enthralled i was left grasping for meaning). anyway, this time i wasn't able to feel as deeply with the characters as i did the first time. knowing how the story ends has not prevented me from identifying with characters in other books upon a reread. so i am not quite sure what this has to do with... ( )

Isn't life scary? Everything that you hold dear is predicated on such flimsy foundations. A superb fairy tale, coming of age novel from Angela Carter. What an excellent writer she is and, speaking as a bloke, I always feel that Carter has the greatest gift in explaining what it means to be a woman. Angela Carter explores the roles that relationships force upon us and illuminates exactly what feminist movement is talking about.

Do read this as an introduction and then go onto the more full-blooded novels "Wise Children" and "Nights at the Circus" ( )

This will go for all of the books by Angela Carter here, not just related to this particular title. Carter is the author who brought it home to me, at the height of all the hype and posturing around the 'Wimmins' movement, that the female writer brings something particular yet universal to bear on literature. Through her re-telling or re-theming of Fairy Tales, especially, Carter also re-mythologizes the writing space (like Holdstock, et al, even though her style and purpose are very different). ( )

The writing's very elaborate and discursive at the beginning, which has a distancing effect. Not transparent-glass distance, but something cloudy and distracting: looking at the words instead of through them at the story.It did clear. I don't know if the writing style changed or if I became accustomed to it, and the story was disturbing enough that I don't want to reread to find out. It's the total destruction of Miranda's comfortable life and self that bothers me -- nothing left by the end, and her perverse boyfriend isn't much consolation. ( )

A darkly, disturbingly brilliant description of a young woman's journey into adolescence and of trying on different roles (child, mother, bride, wife) for size on and off the stage. Thrown into an unknown world and an unknown family, Melanie begins to understand others in relation to herself and tries to find her way. Angela Carter shows understanding of a 15-year-old's thinking while placing the protagonist in an environment which enables her to live out her fantasies and nightmares. ( )