The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red

The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My life at Rose Red, is a hoax grabbing on to the coat-tails of the Blair Witch Project. I was going through my books, adding more to LibraryThing, when I came across this book. I generally grab anything that purports to be a diary or memoir, especially if they're odd. The back cover makes this sound fascinating. Here's an excerpt:
The diary not only follows the development of a girl into womanhood, it follows the construction of the Rimbauer mansion - called Rose Red - an enormous home that would be the site of so many horrific and inexplicable tragedies in the years ahead.
I thought, "I have to read this soon! This sounds great!"
I read it in the last two days. Just so I could write the review and move on to show more juicier fare.
There were two defining moments in reading this book. The first happened within minutes of starting when I realised it was a big fake. The second was late last night when I got the heebie jeebies reading a pretty scary bit (I love getting scared).
This diary and its author, Joyce Reardon, are both fakes. They are created as the print version of a Stephen King tv movie that I had never heard of. Initially, finding this out was a great disappointment. But I don't so much mind now. I am slightly interested to see the movie. Only slightly.
The book is so sensational in parts, and so eerily pervy in the way it depicts women in the first person, much like Robert Jordan in his Wheel of Time books. This book is so sex-focussed, thinly disguised as not, and seems to revel in the amount of sex it can relate innocently and with mock offence, by a woman. Men seem to often portray the sexual side of women as a man sees it. The sex scenes are often inane, and the orgasms more like a man's response than a woman's. It is "Bad sex scene of the Year' Award stuff. I discussed one such scene with my friend and we both agreed that gravity tends to make that particular position a clumsy short-lived failure, rather than the magnetic centre of the universe depicted here.
Also, it is not great writing, but it is not shit. It is quite enjoyable in a mass-market kind of way, because it is easy. The horror is quite effective. The disappearance of women in the house is quite scary at times, particularly as the men of the house have something to do with it. The horror, then, is driven by the mistreatment of women by men. The supernatural horror is never really explained, though attempts are made which leave me only with images of Indians. Women often have to be the victims (because they are), but it would make more sense for this story to show the men as the victims. But it doesn't do it quite like it should. Ellen Rimbauer's house is haunted by the ghosts of Indians disturbed by the ruination of their graveyard to accommodate the Rimbauer mansion, Rose Red. People disappear in Rose Red. Vanish. They are generally victims before vanishing. It is a mixture of many horror stories we've heard before. This has strong elements of Amityville Horror. It will probably remind people of many others.
Actually written by Ridley Pearson, this books is light and enjoyable and, at times, very offensive in its desire to inflict pain on women. I will never read it again, but I'll probably hang on to it, just in case. show less

I checked out The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer because The Journals of Eleanor Druse improved my opinion of the Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital mini-series. I liked the Stephen King's Rose Red mini-series better, but I hoped the fictional diary would provide new information.

We do get a much closer look at Ellen and John Rimbauer, not to mention Ellen's African friend and maid, Sukeena. I hadn't realized Sukeena had so much power or that John Rimbauer was an even bigger swine than he was in the mini-series.

Ellen's marriage is a cautionary tale about marrying for wealth and position rather than true love. All the action takes place before the Women's Liberation Movement, so it's understandable than Ellen feels trapped and endures her husband show more often treating her as his personal property and sex toy. His emotional abuse is considerable. The one time he does hit Ellen, I forgot she grew up before women were taught how to defend themselves and wanted her to kick him where it hurts.

That back cover line about men being killed and women disappearing without a trace at Rose Red is true. Were the ravings of the man who killed the first man to die true? As the years pass, Rose Red develops a very different attitude toward its female guests and inhabitants from its attitude toward the males. We are given a plausible reason for many of the disappearances, and they suggest chilling possibilities for those whose disappearance seemed gratuitous. Sadly, not all of the brutal men who appear in this book get to die in hideous fashion.

I don't remember the link to Seattle's Chinatown being mentioned in the mini-series, but they were interesting as well as a testament to the mistreatment of the Chinese who came to the USA to build our railroads.

If you enjoy sex scenes, there are plenty.

I agree with another reviewer that the Winchester Mansion in San Jose, California probably inspired Rose Red.

It's an entertaining read. show less

The book was SO much better than the mini series! The details in the book, & the complete spookiness & shocking details come across as a REAL diary. If it hadn't been written by Stephen King, you'd think it could have been a real experience. This was completely awesome. I love Stephen King anyway, but this little book is quite possibly the least sensationalized & most realistic thing he's ever done. I HIGHLY recommend it as a read. Preferably at night, when you're home alone, & it's storming.....I guarantee you can't stop turning the pages.

About the only thing positive I can say about this book is that the premise is interesting. Of course, the idea of a house that is itself an evil entity isn’t original, but the notion that the house’s owners are also its servants who feed it until they are themselves absorbed is pretty fun. The execution is lacking, though. I finished the book out of mild curiosity to see how the story played out and because I needed the Supernatural bingo square for the 2016 Halloween Bingo.

This book was written as a movie tie-in, intended to serve as a prequel and Blair Witch style marketing hype. It refers to supplemental materials on a now-defunct website for the fake university that the fake author supposedly taught at. I suppose this is one show more of the downsides to the multimedia book idea that I enjoyed with Night Film. The book is forever, but the online supplementals are transient and render the book itself forever incomplete.

On a side note: I see that I originally rated this book 4 stars when I read it eleven years ago. Funny how our tastes and judgement change over time. show less

A mysterious and haunting spirit lurks within the walls of Rose Red, the setting for Stephen King's upcoming ABC miniseries tie-in by the same name. Built on a Native American burial ground in early 20th-century Seattle, the mansion which is constantly under construction sets the scene for a multitude of inexplicable disappearances and ghastly deaths. While moody oil tycoon John Rimbauer refuses to acknowledge that the house has a mind of its own, his young wife, Ellen, dramatizes these eerie events with great detail in her diary, often personifying the house as if it were a living being. (Or, perhaps, a non-living being?) While the evolution of Ellen's character from innocent and submissive to frighteningly powerful is a slow process, show more the language and questioning nature of her entries entice the reader as the mystery of Rose Red is brought into full bloom. Ellen also reveals frustration and disappointment with her marriage namely her husband's unfaithfulness and alarmingly frequent involvement in voyeuristic activities as well as a growing confusion about her sexual identity and attachment to her friend and African handmaid, Sukeena. In addition to extensive dialogue that makes the diary seem a tad more like a novel than someone's personal confessions, Ellen's entries are accompanied by a handful of explanatory notes put in by the "editor" and supposed professor of paranormal studies, Joyce Reardon. The people mentioned in the diary, as well as Reardon, are all characters in Rose Red, which was created directly for television by the bestselling author. As to who penned the actual text of the diary? That remains as much of a mystery as Rose Red herself. show less

meh

This one tried to be feminist but it failed to do so for a few reasons.
Because it was based on a tv show that already had problems,
and
because it tried to mimic the writing styles of other authors (Steven King and du Maurier come to mind)
and,
because it's racist, fatphobic (hey like S.King is, following tradition!) and all around gratuitous while trying to emulate both books like Hell House and Rebecca.

I'd much prefer it if it actually was the feminist prequel it's pretending to be, because it was actually fun to read!

Yeah, I admit it. After seeing the miniseries, Rose Red, I rushed off to buy the Diary of Ellen Rimbauer thinking it was a true story. The fact that I got it out of the fiction/literature section of Barnes and Noble didn't clue me in, either. I was about two pages into the 'diary' when it occurred to me that this narrative seemed very unlike something a 19-year-old girl around the turn of the (last) century would be writing. I looked at the binding which, to my chagrin, clearly said 'FICTION' in nice bold letters. Despite my initial disappointment in myself, and in the most esteemed writer's apparent inability to think like a 19-year-old girl (understandably), the book turned out to be pretty entertaining. It chronicled 20 years in the show more life of a young woman-the mistress of the formidible mansion, Rose Red-as she dealt with the horrors thrown upon her by her husband's immoral behavior and Rose Red's morbid punishments. A quick read and entertaining book, My Life at Rose Red is a book anybody from teens on up could enjoy. show less