Oh, that book had such a huge impact on me when I first read it. I remember going through lots of big books of fairy tale analyses by like Jack Zipes and Marina Warner and the like in my school library and seeing all these references to this collection and when I finally got around to reading it, I wasn't disappointed. Actually, I do think the prose has an intensely heady effect that can drag a reader not in the mindset for that particular baroque way of writing under. I wasn't ready for it at first and remember being quite drugged on the circularity of her expression and the way she'd try to make her words waltz around each other, description spinning everywhere. I tried twice before I could appreciate the stories as a whole. Unfortunately, many of my friends who read this book due to the recommendation of my feverish, missionary zeal were unimpressed and disliked the style over substance nature, so I'm incredibly pleased to finally see someone praise it. Even if I'm only a strange lurker who's never piped up before this. :) (I did pick up After School Nightmare precisely due to your review posts on it, so thank you for that!)

I think she also has another story based on the Cinderella fairy tale which is a bit less decadent as these and more whimsical in tone. Well, as whimsical as Angela Carter can be, which always comes with too copious a side serving of bawdy slyness to adopt the feeling of lightness that the description whimsy invokes, I suppose. Anyway, blah, I ramble too much. I wanted to say that it focused very much on the absence of the biological mother and the conflict that creates with the invasive step-mother figure. I remembered it because you brought up the thread of brutish masculinity here and that's one of her retellings that has almost no male presence at all, if my sieve-like memory recalls correctly. If you're in the mood to look it up, I think it's called Ashputtle: insert clever sounding subtitle. Ugh sorry, first time comment and I'm pushing recommendations on people already. :-/