The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice

Title: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
Author: Anne Rice
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: March 1st, 1999
Re-Released: July 12th, 2012
Publisher: Plume
Pages: 272
Format: Electronic Copy
Acquired: Netgalley
Interest: Series
Age Group: Very Adult

From bestselling author Anne Rice, writing as A.N. Roquleaure. In the traditional folktale of 'Sleeping Beauty,' the spell cast upon the lovely young princess and everyone in her castle can only be broken by the kiss of a Prince. It is an ancient story, one that originally emerged from and still deeply disturbs the mind's unconscious. Now Anne Rice's retelling of the Beauty story probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Here the Prince reawakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation. His reward for ending the hundred years of enchantment is Beauty's complete and total enslavement to him as Anne Rice explores the world of erotic yearning and fantasy in a classic that becomes, with her skillful pen, a compelling experience.

I won't lie, I felt very awkward reading this book series, but only because of the image I have painted of Anne Rice. I always had her in a different light so when I saw this book on Netgalley, I had to read it to see what was going on!

Anne Rice is always known for her vampire series and to a lesser extent her Wicca series as well, but this is the first time I even heard about something like this, and I have to say that Rice has an imagination that has no bounds.

First, I'm glad this did not change my perception of the wonderful Disney-version fairy tale that I actually love the most, but this did give me a new way to look at things. In the original Sleeping Beauty it was said that the Prince raped Sleeping Beauty as a means to wake her up instead of a kiss, and I could see that Anne Rice completely pulled from that.

The story made me uncomfortable in some areas and it made me wish I had thought a little longer or harder before saying requesting this book, but in the long run with the entire Fifty Shades and erotic romance on the rise, there was nothing to be lost.

This twist gave me goosebumps and a lot of times I could not believe the acts the Prince would make Beauty do, or even how other people, like her father, reacted to it. Yet, Anne Rice formed the entire story that in a lot of ways it wasn't so much as uncomfortable as that this was just another way of life.

If you are a fan of Fifty Shades or you want to start stepping into the rising erotic world that seems to be making it's way to the bookstores and Netgalley I suggests not missing out on this story. It might be uncomfortable, but in the long run I think this is something I may have ended up regretting later on. It is not just writers that have to take risk, but also readers, and this book is one of those risks for readers to take.