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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Most people know the plot of Rosemary's Baby, either through seeing or hearing about the movie, so I won't recap it. While reading I felt that the book would have made a huge impression on me if I had read it prior to viewing the film. I'm still very impressed with Levin's writing, but knowing what I did took some of the impact away from it. A low-level feeling of dread permeates the whole book, much like what you get from Richard Matheson's I Am Legend or Stephen King's Salem's Lot. What's interesting about Levin's "monsters" is that they are not hiding in the dark, they walk around in the daylight with you. They might even be your best friend or your lover. Even though I knew what was coming, the last chapter still surprised me. I found myself wondering if I really believed Rosemary or not and I don't remember having that reaction to the film. I would definitely recommend this book to any fan of old school horror stories. (  ) VictoriaPL | Nov 23, 2009 |  This is an excellent book - although I have to admit I am a big, big fan of the film. Having said that, the film is extremely close to the book and made the images in my head so clear when I was reading it. It's well written (and easy to read at that), it has a very interesting plot and it's just a great read. (  ) Fluffyblue | Nov 7, 2009 | I admit: I saw the movie first. And I was pleasantly surprised to see how true to the book the movie was, looking back. Normally, one isn't so lucky. But this is a review about the book. Though sometimes it could read a little unemotional, in my opinion, the winning part of the book for me is the dialogue. There are just some times that I can see people I know speaking the way the Castevets or Guy Woodhouse speaks. In an almost hypocritical stance from before, I think Rosemary is a bit over the top at the end. It's justified (hey, if you found out what she did, you may go a bit crazy too), but sometimes a bit way over the top. And I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the line "It was kind of fun, in a necrophile sort of way," was from the book. It has to be the one that always gets me laughing as a defense mechanism to the disturbing qualities. All in all, I think the book was great. Seriously, a must read for horror lovers. ( ) SlySionnach | Aug 26, 2009 | The idea and story for this book are good but some parts were just...blah (I don't know another way to put it). It took me a long time to read because at times I didn't want to continue reading it. (  ) shmuffin | Apr 12, 2009 | Like most people, I at least knew the basic premise behind Rosemary's Baby, but I had never read the book or even seen the movie. "Disquieting" is perhaps the perfect word to describe this book. There is just this subtle thread of dread throughout the entire story that is amazing. I highly, highly recommend it. I'm looking forward to picking up some other books writting by Levin. ( ) miyurose | Dec 13, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0451194004, Paperback)When published in 1967, Rosemary's Baby was one of the first contemporary horror novels to become a national bestseller. Ira Levin's second novel (he went on to write such fine thrillers as A Kiss Before Dying, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys from Brazil), Rosemary's Baby, remains perhaps his best work. The author's mainstream "this is how it really happened" style undeniably also made the novel his most widely imitated. The plot line is deceptively simple: What if you were a happily married young woman, living in New York, and one day you awoke to find yourself pregnant? And what if your loving husband had--apparently--sold your soul to Satan? And now you were beginning to believe that your unborn child was, in reality, the son of Satan? Levin subtly makes it all totally plausible, unless of course, dear Rosemary--or the reader--can no longer distinguish fantasy from reality! A wonderfully chilling novel, it was later faithfully transformed into an equally unnerving motion picture. In 1997, a sequel was spawned, Son of Rosemary. --Stanley Wiater(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:54 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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