The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty [Kindle Edition]

Anne Rice (Author), A. Roquelaure (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

* "One of the most wonderful, erotic, sensual books ever written" - Sting on INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. *"a literary odyssey into a world of forbidden lust...the same kind of skillful writing that brought respectability into the works of Henry Miller, Anais Nin and D.H. Lawrence" - UPI

Product Description

This title has been removed from sale by Penguin Group, USA.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 439 KB
• Publisher: Plume (May 1, 1999)
• Sold by: Penguin Publishing
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001QL5MIC
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (327 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #191,543 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for everyone, October 31, 2007

By 

Miss Heavenly Angora (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (Paperback)

As you have no doubt noticed, the reviews of this book vary widely. I just got it and wasn't really sure what to expect, but I can't put it down. Heed the bad reviews; it is certainly not for everyone. However, I am a big snob concerning erotica, and I have never liked Ann Rice before, and I was very pleasantly surprised by this book.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is not at all realistic, though why anyone would be looking for realism in a fairy tale/erotica combination that begins with the Prince breaking a spell of a 100-year sleep is beyond me. Everyone is impossibly beautiful, but so are all the princesses in Grimms' fairy tales and the principals in most erotica. I, for one, enjoy reading about a bunch of beautiful, exquisitely dressed people within impossibly opulent settings.

There certainly are a lot of spankings, nearly in every chapter. If you like that kind of thing, you won't be bored. If it's not your cup of tea, it might get old. I don't find it monotonous; maybe repetitive, but that's not necessarily bad. The Marquis de Sade is repetitive too; spanking is repetitive by nature. There's a lot going on in The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty besides spanking as well. Many of the principals are what would be considered underage in the present-day United States, and consent is questionable at best. Again, you're the judge of whether that would turn you on or off.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is at heart a Nouveau-Décadent work. I just reread Beardsley's Under the Hill and Rice's book is very reminiscent of that style. (By the way, most Décadent works are unrealistic and light on plot.) If you like Sade or Mirbeau, or certain passages in Petronius or Suetonius, you'll probably like this. If you don't like eroticized violence or overwrought language, or you want erotica with consensual, loving, adult partners of clearly defined sexual orientation, this is not for you.

45 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed! Thought it was going to be a love story., February 10, 2006

By 

Sydney - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (Paperback)

Being a submissive female myself, I was really excited when I first started reading this book, thinking it was going to be a bdsm love story between the Prince and Beauty. Boy was I wrong. Now the first three chapters didn't dissapoint in this respect; the early scenes with the Prince and Beauty were sexy and romantic. But as soon as they arrived at the castle, the Prince just sort of left the picture. And that was pretty much the end of any semblance of a male dom/female sub focus.

I kept waiting for him to reappear in the book, but he never did. Also, his character seemed changed after he arrived at the castle...much weaker and very pathetic...no guts to stand up to his mother and protect Beauty. All the characters seemed really shallow too, with no real concept of what love is.

The rest of the book was basically just just about spankings, and punishment, and humiliation...which really isn't erotic at all to me without the context of a loving relationship between the participants. Needless to say, I was very disappointed with the way this book turned out. If the focus had stayed on Beauty and the Prince, I think it would have been great. But as it is, it was a major disappointment. So if you're looking for some romantic, sexy, male dom/female sub bdsm, you'd be much better off reading [...] than this one.

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sexy & Entertaining, November 2, 2007

By 

saris "~kajira~" (Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (Paperback)

I spent a good deal of tonight reading through reviews for this book and I am astonished at how many people expected the novel to be anything more than a sexy, erotic tale which was a twisted version of the old Sleeping Beauty story. I was also a bit disappointed in the way that many of the reviews came across as being rather closed-minded to some of the core concepts and those who seemed to expect more than what is reasonable from an erotic story.

Don't walk into the book thinking that you are getting some deep insight into the past or that there's any magic information that will tell you what the medieval socio-economic situation was, that's just ludicrous seeing as how it's fiction. Furthermore, why would you want to have some sort of deeper meaning when reading a fiction erotic novel?

If you enjoy Domination/submission with a BDSM twist that dances along the edges of punishment, torture, humiliation and raw sexuality then you will most likely be pleasantly surprised. This tale takes the basic story of Sleeping Beauty being woken by her prince charming and twists it into a whole new realm of (im)possibility, but it's the kind of situation that many people who lean towards non-vanilla tastes will find quite tantalizing.

Keep in mind that this book will put off anyone who does not see romance and sensuality in a power exchange. If you can't tolerate the idea that a woman, or man, may actually wish to submit to another person because they wish to please the Dominant then the concepts will probably seem too far fetched to keep your attention. Also, if you are put off by homo-erotic concepts then you'd best keep a distance. It's not for everyone, but for those open to the above mentioned "flavors" then the book will probably be entertaining at the very least.

As for the writing itself, I can't say that I had any major complaints. There were a few places where I felt things could have been either shortened or expounded upon, but ultimately I know I could not write a better book myself so I just let my mind follow the story and delight in the images that were conjured in my imagination. Many times there were shivers up and down my spine as I got lost in the imagery.

As a side note, I would write the same general review for the following two books in the series, though I do feel that the first was the best of the three in most regards. However, the third did sum up the whole story quite nicely and had a nice ending.