I have never read another writer who writes like Angela Carter. Her writing is beautiful and excessive and utterly lush and extravagant; I can't really describe it any other way. Her wordplay is so elegant and her turn of phrase is beautiful. The stories themselves are twisted versions of dark fairy tales, set in both the present day and in a historical setting. My favorites of the bunch: The Bloody Chamber (Bluebeard in a Victoriana setting), The Tiger's Bride (Beauty and the Beast) and The Lady in the House of Love (vampire story, sad and wonderfully written). However, sometimes, the prose gets the better of Carter, and the stories spiral into a sort of frantic, wordy, bizarre mess. Still captivating, but very strange. I found The Snow Child, with it's themes of child-adult lust to be off-putting. Puss-in-Boots about...Puss-in-boots, I found it dull, the characters lacking (rare for Carter) and I struggled through that story.
Still, two clunkers out of several stories isn't bad. Angela Carter has to be one of my favorite authors, and this book of stories is definitely a keeper for me.