If you're looking for a good BDSM fiction, this is it. Otherwise - stay away. And I mean it!!! BDSM is an acquired taste and if you're not really into it, you'll find the book repulsive.

Now, if you're into love games and are fascinated by mild (or not so mild) pain in an erotic setting - you've got the right book. The fairytale, Sleeping Beauty, is used merely as a starting point, the story goes off on a tangent within the first few pages and then we're taken into the neighbouring kingdom with all its twisted customs.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is well planned out, with the right amount of plot, sex and romance. Much easier to get through than Interview with the vampire (which I found long and tiresome though inspiring too), from which I gather that Ann Rice got better skilled at expressing her thoughts. And boy, are those some sick thoughts! Makes sense that this was published this under a pen name. The subject matter is so extreme (not Bataille extreme, but still rather out there, even in comparison to her vampire books, which weren't all that well behaved either). Thanks for that Ann Rice, you perv, I really enjoyed it! Devoured this book in 3 short bursts.

It's like, uh, nasty. Extremely kinky BDSM without much else. It's 99% porn, basically.

It involves lots of tedious spanking-spanking-raping-spanking-raping, pointless dialogues (like people in the book have no other concerns than each other's behinds, grrr!), unconcensual stuff.

I'm no prude and am open to quite a bit of stuff but basically I have no idea what I read it for. The only good use of this book would be to carry it around in public transport and open on provocative pages for the people who like reading from over your shoulder to be appalled and hopefully stop undulging in this irritating habit. I guess, now I know which book is my LEAST favourite this year.

Don't recommend this for anyone except for the lovers of hard & kinky porn. And even they should beware.

This is, from what my boyfriend tells me, a hilarious book to read aloud on a plane if you want to make the other passengers uncomfortable. As far as I can tell, that's its only use.

Warning: smutty images described here. :)

I snagged a copy of this just to see what all the fuss was about (and now that I have a kindle, I can read all the smut I want without anyone knowing, lol). I managed to get through about 1/3 of it, then clicked to the end to see what happened.

Here's what I thought:

- Several images are going to stay with me for the rest of my days, and no amount of brain bleach is going to remove them (specifically: the guy that is forced to spend the night mounted on a statue with it's immense stone cock up his ass)
- The whole tone of the book was one of humiliation, degradation and fear. Not a big turn-on for me - I like my smut to be at least kind of uplifting. :)
- The constant spanking got old quick.
- Anne Rice is a complete crackpot. W.T.F.

Not for me, I'm afraid. I'd rather read Lora Leigh - I think her stuff is a little more cheerful.

A waste of time.

Belts, books, newspaper, brooms, brushes, curry comb, carpet beater (or rug duster), flails, pointing stick, ruler and yardstick. Table tennis paddles, cricket bat(and various sports rackets), hockey sticks, oars, pokers, ropes, cords and cables (for whipping; also for tying), shaving strap, shoes, boots, golf shoes (the plimsoll is a classic) spoon, spatula, whisk, ladle and other cooking utensils such as the cutting board, Sweat Scrapers, towels (especially wet, to increase the weight). Plant materials such as nettles or certain vines, hot sauce for applying before or after a spanking to increase burning/pain, without increasing strength of blows, peeled ginger for figging in order to prevent clenching during spanking, bamboo skewers, candles (wax play),clothes, pegs, plastic wrap, ice cubes, knives, bandannas as blindfolds or gags, snakebite kits (provide suction). Mentholated rubs, trams, feathers or feather dusters (for tickling; the second also as stick)gloves and oven mitts, lighters, matches, etc. Medical equipment, such as Wartenberg wheels, sounds, and speculums, nails, pins and needles, leather bootlaces (to make an improvised martinet,) banjo picks, Ball lock, rasps, various tools, edibles, (such as whipped cream, peppers, fruits and vegetables, etc.) Cooking oils and shortenings (for massaging)vibrating devices, even as remote as a washing machine, especially large solid objects that are also used passively to tie the victim onto, (e.g. a vaulting horse or vault buck, a sawhorse etc. as an improvised punishment horse, a barrel etc. to be bent over for the victim to lie upon, as chair, table, bed, etc.rubber bands and other constrictive items.)*

~Yawn~

What’s the dealio? I’m sorry, did I miss the memo on why this stuff is supposedly hot?

This book was recommended to me as a sort of aside… like a ‘Hell, you should read Anne Rice’s BDSM books’ and I, of course, take those sort of things with the utmost seriousness (‘Hell yeah!’) and then find myself at the Barnes and Noble wielding my 20% off coupon like a bitch in heat wields her ({}).

This shit is crap. Okay, I won’t even go into the writing, because to be honest, I really don’t care for Anne Rice. I've read the Witching Series… just so I could mock her and be able to back it up. Rule #1 of Snarkdom: Must be knowledgeable.

Seriously… what am I missing with the whole BDSM scene? How is degradation, pain, submissiveness, humiliation, rape, enslavement, etc at all attractive?

Ok, fine… personal preference… got it. Whatever floats your dinghy, I suppose. I was bored, disgusted and angry with this. I kept hoping that Beauty would finally get some balls and run a sword through the damn Queen. Instead, she was ‘grateful’ for this life that ‘spared’ her of a previous virginal existence where she was forced to needlepoint and be wooed by Lords and Princes and then prick her finger and sleep for 100 years. Oh, now THAT sounds like Hell.


*Thank you, Wikipedia….. Did you actually think I could come up with a list like that? Shame on you.

I’ve read this book multiple times over the past twenty years. I reread it recently in order to prepare this review, and it’s taken me a few days to crystallize my thoughts about this book. First, I want to remark on how well it’s held up in the three decades (!) since its release. The writing is still as fresh and accessible (and HOT) as it was the first time I cracked it open as a teenager in that crowded B Dalton all those years ago. The description, the emotion, and the lust still jump off the page. It still disturbs and fascinates in equal measure. It’s a remarkable, incredible book … but it’s definitely not for everyone. Not by a long shot.

Ms. Rice, writing as A.N. Roquelaure, gets things started with a, er, bang, with the opening sequence of the Prince’s claiming of the eponymous Beauty. This scene is not only incredibly brave (it takes guts to write fantasy this unflinchingly), but it’s so true to the animal, primal nature of the sexual fantasies this book not only explores, but embraces. Is sexual fantasy “safe”? Is it politically correct? The answer is of course, ‘no’, and this book both acknowledges this fact, and affirms the truth of the untameable, ever hungering nature of our sexual fantasies and desires. In its own understated way, this book is a subtle, yet emphatic refutation of the ridiculous notion that sexual fantasies and desires need to be safely within bounds, or even worse, politically correct. Does it make the reader uncomfortable at times? Of course. Does the line between “right” and “wrong” sometimes become blurred? Absolutely. But such is human nature; the complexities of sexual desire are not at all sunshine and rainbows, and the deeper needs and urges that drive sexual desire are sometimes simply inexplicable … and there are more than a few of us who like it that way just fine:)

Many have faulted Ms. Rice for overwrought or flowery writing here, but I’ve never understood this criticism. I’ve read a LOT of erotic romance, erotica (which this story definitely is), and just plain porn, and I found the writing in this story to be not only comparatively spare, but refreshingly direct. Rice manages to be supremely literary, yet does so in a prose style that is so very accessible and devastatingly effective in stirring the passions of the reader. She knows exactly where she wants to go here -- and she knows how to get the reader there. To read this book -- regardless of your particular reaction to the content -- is to witness a writer at the top of her form, with a stunning command of language, and an enviable facility with description, and the eliciting of emotion.

The characters here, more than the plot (which itself is straightforward), are simply fascinating. Ms. Rice is content to paint most of the characters with broad, only selectively distinct strokes, and allow the reader the time, the opportunity, to fill in those negative spaces. It’s something I wish more writers would do, for it’s not only more thought-provoking, but it is (in my humble opinion) much more respectful of the reader; many of us do not in fact need everything spelled out for us. Where she does delve into more detailed character studies, her subjects are both unexpected and riveting. The character of Beauty (for the narrative stays with her POV for most of the book) is almost a sort of unwilling guide through this at once familiar, yet alien world of the kingdom of Queen Eleanor. The book does, as a whole, center on Beauty’s journey, but there are several other characters whose stories are just as vital, and perhaps moreso, to the overarching theme of the book. It’s through some of these other characters, particularly the sympathetic, almost martyr-like figure of Prince Alexi, that Rice explores the complexities of human emotion, sexuality, and the mysterious deeper motivations of human beings.

But it’s in the character of Queen Eleanor that we find the dark, beating heart of this story. Her influence is everywhere, whether she’s physically present in a scene or not. At once frightening and alluring, she’s a perfect example of the dichotomy, even paradox, so often found in the origins of human sexual desires. Is she an evil woman, corrupted by power, determined to ruthlessly exert it over all she surveys? Or is she much more complex? A woman uniquely equipped to explore and revel in not only her own sexual desires, but the desires she suspects lurk, in one form or another, within most of us. Ms. Rice gives us hints, suggestions, but never answers these questions. As much I love that Queen Eleanor was written in this open-ended, even mysterious way, so many tantalizing, even profound questions are raised when it comes to her character. I know it’s a fool’s hope (my impression is that Ms. Rice never intends to revisit this world again), but I would so very much love to read more background on the Kingdom, and especially how Eleanor came to be the person she is depicted as here in this story.

As for the content of this book, readers need to be warned: there is almost every permutation of sexuality and BDSM that you can think of here. I’ve seen the descriptor ‘pansexual’ used in other reviews, and I think that’s a reasonable approximation of what you’ll find here. But that word doesn’t quite do this book justice, because though the varieties of sexual coupling are myriad, I think the general theme of the book is anything but pansexual. This is a book about the deeper meaning, the dichotomy, of sexual desire in the context of Dominance and submission, pain and pleasure, and much more subtly (though no less powerfully), love and hate. There is corporal punishment galore here, largely in the form of paddling, and though some reviewers fault the pervasive nature of it, it is not in fact in every scene, and does actually make sense where it’s depicted. There is dubious consent, and non consent aplenty, and if the general idea of enforced sexual slavery for a period of multiple years is offensive to you, then you need to run away from this one, and quickly. If you are averse to the depiction of female/female and male/male sexuality, you’re going to have a tough time with this one. Yes, the sex depicted is primarily heterosexual, but there is considerable same sex content as well. I had some trouble initially with the male/male content, but I kept an open mind about it, and though personally not my thing, I was able to see how it actually added to the narrative, and helped tell the story of these characters that you cannot help but care about.

If you are a person with a kinky bent, I would say this is indispensable reading; I can’t think of any single work of BDSM erotica, save perhaps Story of O, that I would recommend all kinky people read. I would say one can read this book both to see what you do like and to help determine what you don’t like. This is not only an excellent, even important, work of erotic fantasy, but in my opinion it’s a fascinating, insightful study of the human condition -- what we desire, what we fear, and what deep down drives us all.

Very highly recommended.

Genre: Erotica
Type: Book 1 of 4 from Sleeping Beauty series
POV: Third Person
Rating:




For a hundred years a kingdom fell into a spell that bound every soul into a deep slumber. But a daring Prince brave enough to break it and claimed the young Princess for servitude. Thus began her new life in the appalling but enticing world of erotic wonder.

n   "Shall I spank her with my hand only to sustain this intimacy? Feel her stinging flesh, its warmth, as I watch it change color? Shall I use the silver-back mirror, or one of a dozen paddles that are all excellent for the purpose?"n

Let me start by saying this book will not be for everyone. It is an erotic fantasy that can only be enjoyed without real life moral judgment. I’ve been intrigued by this one for a while and I’m glad I took the plunge.

n   "It is no shame to you, Princess. How could it be, with such a great Prince to command you? O, do you think that there aren’t women who would give up everything to take your place, if only they had your beauty?”n

I actually thought the story would be much darker and horrifying than it actually was. I suppose because I’ve read such “out there” content before it didn’t fazed me. I enjoyed the creative and sometimes amusing debauchery throughout the book.



However, I had several issues with the writing. I wanted more than a fleeting connection with the characters. I also struggled towards the end with long chapters (my personal reading bane) and too much telling. Even though those chapters carried the most intense scenes, I had hard time keeping my attention.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is a tale of sexual awakening and submission. It would appeal to fans of no holds barred erotica.

Books in the series:
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