Express req.body is in quotes

I am trying to get an Express REST API working, and for some reason the JSON body always ends up with unnecessary quotation marks. I am using the following configuration in the Express middleware:

app.use(bodyParse.urlencoded({
  extended: true
}));
app.use(bodyParser.json());

And am using

console.log(JSON.stringify(req.body));

To test this. With request body

{"name": "New Event", "description": "Hello. This is event"}

I get

{"{\"name\": \"New Event Thingy\", \"description\": \"Hello. This is event\"}":""}

and with body

"name": "New Event", "description": "Hello. This is event"

I get

{"\"name\": \"New Event Thingy\", \"description\": \"Hello. This is event\"":""}

Why am I getting these unneccessary characters?