diff --git a/lib/nori/parser/nokogiri.rb b/lib/nori/parser/nokogiri.rb
index 533de70..6db8ebc 100644
--- a/lib/nori/parser/nokogiri.rb
+++ b/lib/nori/parser/nokogiri.rb
@@ -46,7 +46,11 @@ def characters(string)
         alias cdata_block characters
 
         def error(message)
-          @last_error = message
+          if (invalid_chr = message[/PCDATA invalid Char value (\d+)/, 1])
+            characters(invalid_chr.to_i.chr)
+          else
+            @last_error = message
+          end
         end
       end
 
@@ -54,7 +58,9 @@ def self.parse(xml, options)
         document = Document.new
         document.options = options
         parser = ::Nokogiri::XML::SAX::Parser.new document
-        parser.parse xml
+        parser.parse xml do |ctx|
+          ctx.recovery = true
+        end
         raise ParseError, document.last_error if document.last_error
         document.stack.length > 0 ? document.stack.pop.to_hash : {}
       end
diff --git a/spec/nori/nori_spec.rb b/spec/nori/nori_spec.rb
index d11a6f4..dd21e6c 100644
--- a/spec/nori/nori_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/nori/nori_spec.rb
@@ -644,6 +644,10 @@
         expect { parse('<foo><bar>foo bar</foo>') }.to raise_error(Nori::ParseError)
       end
 
+      it "should preserve control characters" do
+        xml = "<tag>a\u0002c</tag>".force_encoding('UTF-8')
+        expect(parse(xml)["tag"]).to eq("a\u0002c")
+      end
     end
   end