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by Charlotte Reads Classics

Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter

You’ve got to be in the mood to enjoy magical realism. Rather pathetically, this book was hard! I do enjoy a good Angela Carter story… The Bloody Chamber is brilliant. But this required a level of concentration I don’t use reading a lot of my books. You’ve got to pay attention or you’ll come round wondering how on earth you got to where you are.

Nights at the Circus follows a girl born with wings, part swan part human, with the tag line: Is she fact or is she fiction? But turn of your logical, questioning brains and remember: MAGICAL REALISM. The story follows a trip around Siberia with a circus, as Fevvers (our cockney swan heroine) charms an american journalist who runs towards her circus. Adventures and mishaps ensue. It is charming, and a typical twisted fairy tale; with the stories of loads of quirky characters mixed in.