matt2050's Full Review: A.N. Roquelaure - The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
Anne Rice has quite a following for her vampire series novels and for her witch series. She has also written such
erotic books as "Exit to Eden" and "Belinda" under the name
Anne Rampling. In 1983, once she had attained a much wider
fan base, under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure, she published
a trilogy of books about Sleeping Beauty and sex. Once she
hit superstardom, she announced that it was she who had written the erotic Sleeping Beauty Trilogy, of which "The
Claiming of Sleeping Beauty" is the first installment.
"The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty" starts with the Prince
entering Beauty's castle, and instead of waking her with a
kiss, awakens her with sexual initiation. Her mother and
father bid her goodbye, and is then taken by the Prince to
his castle when she will serve and train to become a slave.
Beauty is forced into sexual degradation, beaten, spanked,
and basically debased in the name of progress. A woman at
the castle, Lady Julianna, takes an interest in Beauty, as
does the Prince's mother, the Queen. Ultimately, Beauty
falls into lust with the enslaved Prince Alexi, and the two
become involved, until at the end of the novel, which sets
up the sequel "Beauty's Punishment", she spies Prince Tristan who is to be sent to the mysterious Village. She
disobeys, and is banished, and in the final chapter, is taken away with the other disobedient slaves to serve at the
Village for an unspecified amount of time.
Anne Rice has created a weird, sexualized, and not very
erotic or shocking world that tries too hard to be naughty.
The book's idea of eroticism is having Beauty, or any other
slave for that matter, spanked for 10 pages or more. After
that, another character is spanked for another 10 pages. And so on and so on. There are about 7 or 8 actual sexual
encounters in the book, which contains just way too much
spanking. Spanking is not naughty, it's not erotic, and
it's not very interesting.
Only a few characters are more that just staples of erotic
literature. Of course, any book needs a certain number of
"main" or important characters, and this book doesn't falter
from that rule. There is Beauty. There is the Prince.
There is Leon, Beauty's valet. There is the Queen. There is Lady Julianna. There is Prince Alexi. And There is
Prince Tristan, who is only in the final 10 or so pages.
Last, and certainly least, there are several trainers who I
cannot remember, and can't say I really cared about, as all
they did was basically spank other characters for any number
of pages.
As for the book's so called "erotic" content, I was less than thrilled. While there are several sex sequences, most
of the rest of the book was about characters who were shown
around naked, spanked, debased, ect. I can't say that it
was sexy, I quickly lost interest with each spanking, until
the end of the novel picked up and set up the far better
sequel. The first few dozen pages were fun to read in a
naughty kind of way, but soon after it slowed down into a
long, blundering, unerotic bore of a book.
I didn't really care for Anne Rice's S & M novel "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty". Some of the material and
character development was fun to read, the book succumbs to
too much repitition about spanking, female and male boring
debasement, humiliation, and a focus on sex. I'm glad that
Anne Rice corrected the mistakes of this novel in the sequel
"Beauty's Punishment". That is a novel which I can honestly
recommend.
From bestselling author Anne Rice, writing as A.N. Roquleaure. In the traditional folktale of 'Sleeping Beauty, ' the spell cast upon the lovely young...More at HotBookSale
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