THAT'S NOT A SLEEPING BEAUTY RETTELING!

4 Stars for The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (audiobook) by Anne Rice read by Genevieve Bevier.

I think this was the first of this kind of book that I read. It was probably about thirty years ago now. It was interesting going back and listening to it this time. I think the story still holds up well. And I’m glad that Anne Rice ultimately felt comfortable putting her name on the book.

WARNING - ADULT CONTENT


First of all let me say that anyone that is not interested in BDSM and read this book anyway has NO RIGHT to complain or write bad reviews. It is your own fault if you read a book that is CLEARLY not to your tastes. Be more intelligent when selecting your reading material in future. If you are interested in BDSM erotica, this is a more than decent read.

This is the first volume in a trilogy that starts in the castle of Sleeping Beauty. However, instead of waking up to true love's first kiss by Prince Charming, she wakes to be claimed by a prince who whisks her away to a kingdom where Submission is the only real option. Even the hardcore practitioner of BDSM will blush at times during the reading of this book, but the author has done her job and you will be hungry for more.

Again, if BDSM is not your cup of tea and you know it, this is NOT a book for you. If you read it anyway and find it not to your liking, you have only yourself to blame.

I read this novel many years ago and I was thrilled by it. It was so hot. But now, this rereading has not given me as much as then.

For the one hand, it has a lot of non consensual sex. Rape, slavery, and a subtext of obedience as a form of freedom. I don't like this stuff and I think there is too much of it. It is not like BDSM, where both persons involved want to be there and do what they do. So that was not good.

Then, their is too much spanking and little real sex. When there is actual it's told very fast and it's over in two lines, but the spanking is all over the place.

Why am I still giving it 3 stars? Because it does something that other erotic novels don't do. Erotism is all over the book. All the other novels I have looked at have lots of story and some scenes here and there about sex, so if you want to play, you have to skip a lot to get to the funny stuff. So I wished there was more of this structural erotic novel with lots of sxe scenes but consensual. Do you know any?

Erotica is not something I'm very familiar with but I came across references to this book (and the other 2 in the trilogy) a few years ago. Somewhat hard to find and it took me a couple of years to aquire all three.
This starts out where the traditional story of Sleeping Beauty ends, the prince wakes her from her 100 year slumber, breaks the curse and rides off with her to his castle. That's where the similarity of the story ends. The rest is a BDSM story of how Beauty, and other slaves, at the castle are trained to be obedient subs.
Many books of this type are self published by unknown authors and of varying quality. Anne Rice wrote these books under the alias of A. N. Roquelaure and it really shows in the prose. A vast step up from 50 Shades of Grey in terms of the writing, but also the amount of BDSM content. This is not a book for the faint of heart so if you found 50 Shades objectionable don't even touch this one!

I'm pretty sure this is not the same version of Sleeping Beauty my mom read to me growing up! Wow! I have to give this book 5 stars for creativity alone. I thought I had a vivid imagination, but Anne Rice saw my fantasies and then raised me by one million chips! So yes, I finally got around to reading this erotic classic and I am glad I did.

While I didn't always enjoy reading certain parts, the story-line was just so interesting that it captivated my attention. And hot? Oh yes...for me there were some really erotic scenes that dampened more than one pair of my panties. At times I felt so sorry for Beauty and at other times I was wishing I was in her place. I could go on, but I think you get my take...it is creative, erotic, crazy and a great fantasy read.

I don’t know how to appropriately rate this, so I’ll just give it 5 stars because it just wasn’t for me.

Algo que me cuesta siempre de los libro eróticos, sobre todo si tratan el tema del BDSM, es que creo que lo confunden con el abuso emocional.
Autores de libros eróticos escúchenme aqui: Una persona que llora cada 5 minutos no es sexy...repitan conmigo NO ES SEXY! ¿Por qué creen que quiero leer sobre una persona tiendo sexo cuando ah todas luces lo que debería estar haciendo es visitar a un psicólogo?

Bella,la protagonista de esta novela es....¿típica? Lo que no me sorprende porque si lees a una chica de literatura erótica prácticamente las conoces a todas.

Aquí una lista de toda protagonista:
- Llorar cada 5 minutos y ser emocionalmente inestable.
- Morderse el labio cuando esta confundida,concentrada,tiene miedo o es tímida. Y aunque ella no se da cuenta de lo que hace,todos lo encuentran sensual.
- Ser ridículamente ignorante respecto al sexo - plus por el maldito fetichismo de ser virgen- y aunque siempre están nerviosas al momento de hacerlo y se muestren tímidas,se calientan en un minuto y tienen como mil orgasmos.
- Falta de personalidad,se muestran confundidas la mayor parte del tiempo y terminan aceptando todo lo que el hombre/rol dominante diga.

Ok. Se podría decir que estoy siendo algo dura con el libro,la verdad es que a pesar de todo lo típico de su personaje,trama y la forma simple de su narración, la protagonista me agrado bastante,bueno si era mas tonta que una puerta y definitivamente no tenia personalidad alguna,pero era tierna y en su mayoría simpatice con ella y los momentos en las que quería tirarla por una ventana fueran casi nulos.

Un plus sin duda de el libro - y de en general todos los de Rice - son la cantidad de personajes bisexuales,gracias por darme en un solo libro sexo heterosexual,lesbico y homosexual, esto es algo que no suelo ver en otros libros de esta temática.

Cosas que olvide mencionar: El príncipe no me agrada ni un poco,si no muere al final de la trilogía estaré desilucinada. Y por ultimo....sus escenas de sexo son aburridoras,lo mismo una y otra vez y que el estilo de narración halla sido tan simple no ayudo a hacerlo excitante.

Some well-meaning friend bought me the Sleeping Beauty trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure because, at the time, I was a huge Anne Rice fan, or at least a fan of her Vampire series, especially Lestat.

So I gave these books a go. It's weird in my younger days how I had a lot more tolerance for sucky books and would read them to completion even if I didn't like them. Today, I have learned to DNF books I don't like, but although it's somewhat contradictory, I have a lot more tolerance for books with crazy, over-the-top-cheesy factors to them.

Roquelaure's retelling of the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty is set in a mythical medieval-like world of kingdoms where Prince and Princesses, the presumptive heirs to said kingdoms, are sent off to be used as sex slaves for the most powerful Queen in all the world and her heir, the Prince...oh I forgot his name. Dimitri, maybe? I don't recall, so I'll just call him The Prince.

Anyway, this Prince comes upon the Sleeping Beauty of legend, and instead of waking her up with a kiss, he fucks her out of her sleep. Yes, I'm going to be crude in these reviews because I'm reviewing straight-up porn, not euphemistic erotica. So, the Prince takes Beauty (Uh-huh, that's her freaking name. By the way, I absolutely hate Beauty. She is the Mary Sue-iest of all Mary Sues: beautiful, everyone desires her, and she has no personality traits at all, at least not until the end of Book 3).

The Prince uses Beauty as his sex slave, while Beauty is awed by the explicit sensuality of her new environs. There is one hot prince in particular that she keeps lusting after, and this doesn't escape her Prince's attention. So her master decides to include Beauty's crush into their love-making session in an MMF menage-a-trois.

Readers, I was not a sheltered child, as my mother paid no attention to the books I read. I watched horror movies as early as age 5. I was a "good" Catholic kid, but I was "curious like most children." This book shocked me to my core. I read it back in the early or mid-1990s, so it was a different time, and things that were shocking then are not shocking now. When I read that scene with the three of them going at it, my eyes grew huge, even as I turned the next page. This was not a book for the "closed-minded." It was supposed to hot and erotic for anyone and everyone. I didn't find it especially erotic, but it was something that had been heretofore forbidden, so I was compelled to go on, which I did.

I remember thinking the Queen made for a more interesting character than Beauty and would have liked to see more about her, but Rice/Roquelaure wasn't interested in her story.

All the slaves are forced to walk around naked, and their naked bodies are intimately detailed. There were more same-sex (men-on-men) encounters, chainings, enslavement, punishments... However, when it got to the paddling, that's when this book became ridiculously redundant and boring.

There's this ritual called the Bridle Path, where slaves have to go through and get their asses paddled. Apparently, being spanked on the ass is the highest of all sexual activities, as it brings an ecstatic euphoria to the spankers and spankees. There's one Princess who loves Beauty in particular and is obsessed with beating her white hiney to a bright red color.

As this book was published in 1983, Anne can say she did it first, but her paddling-fixation must've influenced The Simpsons a bit, because those butt-smacking scenes reminded me of this:

n  n

And this:

n  n

Beauty hears of the controversial Prince Tristan, who has escaped from the palace. Tristan will be the Gary Stu hero of the next installment. Eventually, Beauty escapes from the palace as well, and she and Tristan are captured along with other wayward escapees and put into a huge cart. Upon seeing one another, the blonde Beauty and equally blond Tristan are drawn together instantaneously. The book ends with the pair fucking each other for comfort while everyone else looks on.

Oh boy, what new adventures are in store for our blond Ken and Barbie couple? Could it be...more sex?

3 stars just for the WTF factor, but this was not a book I really can say I enjoyed. It was eye-opening, though, that's for sure. The rest of the books in this series lose their shock factor and just become mind-numbingly repetitive.

where to begin, i love ann rice books but this is not one of them. i am a very open minded person but this is not for me.it wasnt the sex or the wording that i didnt like it was how beauty and the other slaves were treated, no matter what rice says i dont think most people get off by being hurt or passed around like a toy.i love erotica but not this kind.

Puts a whole different spin on the fairy tale,
Prince charming wakes beauty with a kiss that's what we all read in the fairy tale, but whatever happened after that kiss, well it wasn't what you was expecting when you read this, but it's a whole lot better than the fairy tale you think of when you expect them to be married and have kids,

HOLY SWEET SLEEPING BEAUTY what have they done to you?
I’m speechless, awe and of course disgusted at the same time.

One of the 'I bought it before I know it' book. Heck, the elegance of the cover and my curiosity brought me here. Oh and the beautiful line “...at once so light and yet so haunting...”
Yeah! Haunting indeed, only in a bad way!

I’m never been a big fan of Disney princesses. Well except to Mulan (is she one of "them"?) anyway, even if I’m not their big fan, I know the stories. Heck, we even theater play that in our school looonnggg time ago. Guess who’s the idiot princess was. Me! Oh, I don’t have a choice people. When you’re one of the tallest bamboo-like girls at our school surely you understand.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is a retelling of the Grimms’ classic fairytale "Sleeping Beauty", isn’t that so obvious? While all the fundamentals are there, the enchantment, the deep slept princess, the almighty prince who claimed Sleeping Beauty, these elements are taken and deeply woven into a whole new tale, far darker and far more disturbing.

I’m deeply curious what a very wholesome fairytale classic would be like if retelling it as a classic erotica. What would be the elements that will be taken and added? More on that kind of stuff. At first I’m just completely shock and the curiosity inside me build up 'harder' than I expected. Oh, Not that kind of hard. use your imagination guys. haha -I’m not going for the details, It’s just too censored to hear.

I didn’t said that I liked it because truth must be told, I am not. This is a kind of book that I might puke if reading it for about half hour or higher a day. There was a palpable excitement from the first half of the book until it goes unbearable (esp. the prince story) Good thing that I’m a bit of an open minded person and this book is written beautifully.
A.N. Roquelaure or aka just Anne Rice super graphic details caught me off guard and drag me to her vivid world full of haunting tale of princes and princesses happily ever after.

Well, there is something for all to appreciate.