Customer Reviews

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

5 star:		(75)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(36)

 

 

Seriously, don't dare click the buy button! I love to read good, well-written eroctica and this was not it. As the other reviewers say, it's just boring. The writing is so non-descriptive ( other than the many colors a rear end can turn). This is an excellent premise gone terribly wrong. It's just a rehash from chapter to chapter of one long spanking. I guess that if you only want that in your erotic collection then this might be of interest. I prefer to mix mine up a little...

Ok, I'll be honest - I'm not sure if Amazon asked me to rate their service or the actual book. I didn't read the link before I clicked. But, since I'm here, I feel compelled to tell you that this book sucks.
I've read a lot of Anne Rice, I consider myself a fan. I've read a lot of Mommy Porn (I'm on mat leave, don't judge!). So I was expecting to be entertained. Instead, this book appears to be 200 or so pages of stuffing random objects into people's bums. I kept waiting for it to get better - it didn't.

I was under the impression that this authour was for empowering women. I was disappointed and kind of offended by this book. I am hoping that maybe she would stand up to him in the next book. I feel as though she should have some control within her life. When I say she I mean Beauty.I didn't find it like 50 shades at all. Bared to you is closer to the 50 shades style.

The Claiming Of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice (writing as A.N. Roquelaure) is the first of the Sleeping Beauty trilogy. I found that there was much repetition in the descriptions and the events that occurred - apparently the characters noticed the same thing about different characters, and the similar problems were inflicted on the characters. Thus, I grew tired of reading because of this. I cannot even imagine how much repetition the second and third book will have.

This is a book that only adults should attempt to read. A lot of the time I was very shocked at what I was reading; I guess I am not used to this genre.

After sleeping for one-hundred years, Beauty is awakened by the Prince after he has sexual intercourse with her without consent. Beauty's entire kingdom awakens and she is consistently reminded by the Prince that the curse was lifted and her kingdom was restored because of him. Thus, the Prince has attained right to take her with him to his kingdom.

Beauty is taken to the Prince's kingdom naked, and she becomes slave there. She discovers that she is not the only naked slave there; there are so many more, and all of the slaves are princes and princesses from surrounding kingdoms that were offered to the Queen - the Prince's mother - as a tribute.

In the palace, the slaves are trained to become submissive and obedient. Everyone, even those in the lowliest ranks are above the slaves. The slaves are spanked, displayed publically, must crawl at times, kiss people's feet, and entertain their masters.

Will Beauty adjust to this place where pain and pleasure are one and the same? Will she be able to submit and become an obedient slave to please the Prince? Or will Beauty be sent to the village along with the other princes and princesses that were unable to please their masters?

2.5/5

Anne Rice's rewriting of Sleeping Beauty is absolutely remarkable. The Prince that claims her takes her away for her to become a sexual toy in the court of some tyrannical Queen. She goes through an initiation that leads her into understanding and feeling that subservience and total submission is the source of absolute slavery to pleasure. Her sexual functioning is made so prominent in her life that it becomes dominant in her bodily functioning. And this sexual desire that becomes permanent is triggered by anything and particularly by humiliation, punishment, abasement, domination, etc. This sexual excitement is also made dependent on all other senses, particularly her sight. She just needs to see someone or something that is desirable for her sexual circuits to start flowing with desire and fluids, and then some punishment or humiliation is inflating this desire even more. She becomes the slave of it and can only fulfill its course. Yet this training of princes and princesses by other nobles does not aim at dominating the intellect of these young people. And in this intellect the rebellious element can become more powerful than their subservience. And in their psyche love can become stronger than sexual drive. Then Beauty is led into rebellion and thrown down into a punishing experience out of the court, in the village next to the castle. Sexual enhancement, if it does not go along with the breaking of the intellect and the negation of all sentiments and passions, can only lead to that rebellion.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

I've heard this touted as an "erotic classic," I don't know if that's the general consensus for I don't normally read or pay attention to the genre, but I certainly hope not, because that would mean this rubbish is among the best it has to offer.

First of all, I'm lead to question why Anne Rice even decided to base this on the Sleeping Beauty tale at all, seems like mostly a marketing decision. She doesn't go back to tell us why or how Beauty came to be "Sleeping Beauty," and it does nothing for the rest of the story after she's been awakened (within the first few pages.) The matter doesn't seem to be considered to its full potential either... just imagine being a fifteen year old girl awakened from a 100+ year sleep by the loss of your virginity, and immediately whisked away naked, helpless, and alone into a sexual subservience of endless rape, torture, and humiliation in a now alien world. I know I'd either be attempting suicide or escape.

There's virtually no development to the history of the world or any of the characters, all of whom I hated--though I sympathized with many of them. Really, there's not one admirable quality in anyone, they're all too busy being either sadistic, masochistic, or just weak and subservient; with no exceptions, it seems, in this entire twisted world. Even Beauty's parents, who it's hinted had themselves spent time serving as sex slaves, are readily compliant to allow their only daughter to be bagged away to suffer under this sub-human prince in his torture chamber of a castle. I know if I were a king, debt or no, I'd have the rascal's head lobbed off in an instant for even suggesting such a thing, never mind his already assumptuous, outrageous behavior. But alas, it seems to be accepted practice in this world and with that I won't argue.

Though when it comes down to it, the setting and the premise are just excuses for one big torture-filled, fairytale porn "novel." Hey, if that's what gets you off! This book is porn, damn straight to ya, and in so many, ahem..."flavors" along the way. I'll warrant, many of the scenes are written quite well, we can feel Beauty's pain and pleasure, and sometimes I actually found the sadistic side of myself getting a kick out of the whole inflicting pain business. But it becomes tiresome and repetitive, quite unbearable once we realize that it isn't leading anywhere worthwhile; it's then exposed for what it is: one long tirade of endless spankings, rape, and human degradation.

It's painful because there's no sense of hope for relief, no justice, not a thread of decency or principle in anything or anyone. I'm surprised at being so offended but such a book just isn't one I *enjoy* reading. Overall I found it disturbing and pointless. The only triumph being learning to endure the pain and domination, to accept it and better oneself. Perhaps it could have been written in a better, more enlightening way, but as is this story is little more than degrading, fairytale-esque torture porn. If that's what you're looking for then read this book and enjoy it, else it'd be better for your health to skip it.

This is hands down THE lamest piece of writing I have ever had in my hands.
If I had never read anything "erotic" before, I would have never touched anything with that label again. Maybe that was the author's goal though, as she is now a converted super-Christian writing about Jesus stuff only?

Now, some think this series is great stuff and oh-so educational about Bondage/Discipline/Sadism/Masochism.
I disagree with that point as well, as any naive "beginner" would certainly be drawn into an oddly twisted "scene" version of what can be very loving and lighthearted play and fun for grownups.
With all the repetition through the pages, poor character development, entirely nonsensical settings and scenes, and an attempt at pornography that doesn't deliver on the real pornographic part for the most part, but is just tasteless enough to spoil the erotic, this is a less than half baked piece of trash writing in every respect.

Disappointing in writing style, disappointing in eroticism, disappointing in pornography (the erotic and the pornographic are not the same!), disappointing in the childishly primitive story plot.

This series of books is only good as paper-fuel for a fireplace for a nice evening on the floor when you're naked with a lover enjoying real eroticism and pornography :)

From the first sentence this book grabbed me and kept me enthralled until about 1/2 way through the book, and at one point I only continued reading to see if the author would come up with anything new. Don't get me wrong...the first half is WELL worth reading whether you read the second half or not. It's just that you get the whole shebang in the first half. After that, its just repitition to the point of agravation. The first spanking, for example, is thrilling. The 100th is a bore. Give me something new. Therefore, I highly recommend the first half of this book to any reader who enjoys fairy tales and erotica. For more variety on the same theme, I would also recommend Bedtime Stories for Women by Nancy Madore, which has a whole bunch of fairy tales - with a DIFFERENT fantasy in every story (all of them fantastic).

This book is not for everyone. While I enjoyed it, I leant it to a friend from work who said she needed a sexy book to read. When she was done she told me it was a bit too much for her. We gave it too my boss and she couldn't get past the second chapter. I regret now lending it out because I got some strange looks from my co-workers. lol. So this will just be my dirty little secret from now on.
This book has a LOT of sex. And I mean the kind that could shock a timid person so I wouldn't recommend it to certain people, like my grandma... The story is so strange and simple that I just had to keep reading to see what was going to happen next. I was really disappointed how it ended. It didn't conclude so I was really confused. I realise now though that there are more books after this so I am about to purchase the second one.

My book club was nothing less than titilated by this selection. It was extremely arousing and exposed us to new and fascinating areas of eroticism. A very interesting and rewarding read!