Anne Rice owes me however long it took me to read two of those three books.

In case you haven’t suffered through the Beauty trilogy and still desire to read them ask yourself this: do I want to read a book set in a castle, a village, or exotic Araby, because it’s the same book repeated three times.

This is the gist. Book 1. Beauty is sleeping. The Prince awakens her by having sex with her. (Not to pop your Disney inspired fantasy, but this is how the original tale went.) He takes her as a slave to his parents castle where she is trained to be a sex slave. She has a lot of sex and she gets spanked, a lot. Then she does something despicable and she’s sent to the village as punishment. Book 2. In the village Beauty has lots of sex and gets spanked a lot more, a lot more. She is captured in a raid and taken to a far off land. Book 3. In the far off land she has exotic sex and is spanked exotically (and a lot.)

Now if your idea of erotica is boring sex and spanking then you need to read Anais Nin, Libido Magazine, or The Story of O, because you don’t know what you’re missing. And if you have read Nin, Libido and O and you still like Beauty, then Masquerade Publishing puts out scads of junk you’re gonna love.

And why am I posting this during Banned Books Week? Yes, not surprisingly, it made the American Library Association list. Now, I dislike these books. In fact, I’m annoyed that this book is still in publication. It’s such a waste of paper. But, I don’t think it should be banned. Avoided, yes, banned, never. Banning such a piece of trashy porn gives it some kind of respectability. Respectability that it does not deserve. This book would have disappeared years ago under the weight of it’s own mediocrity if some ninny hadn’t shouted "oh my God! Anne Rice wrote about kinky sex." If that hadn’t happened I would be discussing why the delicate and beautiful prose of Anais Nin shouldn’t be banned.




Recommended: Yes