Rating: 
Summary: HOT! HOT!! HOT!!!!
Review: Although the entire trilogy is lovely...this is my favorite volume. I cannot count the number of times I have picked up this book and read a few pages. I feel Anne Rice bravely put down on paper her fantisies (which happen to be shared by many woem) for the world to enjoy....and it is a well-written book.An additional suggestion I would like to make to potential readers is if indeed you purchase the book, try reading it to others and have them read to you. It is a most enjoyable experience, to say the least!
Rating:
Summary: Great sequel!
Review: Beauty's Punishment is the continuation of The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Anne Rice's erotic retelling of the popular fairy tale. In the second installment, Beauty is punished for having rebelled against the Prince. She, along with Prince Tristan, an insubordinate slave and object of Beauty's desire, is auctioned, captivated and subjected to the most erotic, tantalizing and cruel games of domination and submission. Again, Anne Rice does an excellent job in illustrating the psychological implications of the human desire. She also does a splendid job in taking the course of the story to unexpected turns...There are various differences between The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty and its sequel. In Beauty's Punishment, the language is less fanciful and more explicit. Also, Prince Tristan is the focal character in this book -- thus, making Beauty seem as though she were a secondary character at times. And I noticed that the erotic scenes are far steamier this time. The changes are brilliant, for it makes the story meatier -- so to speak. I am duly impressed with Ms. Rice's ecstatic imagination and excellent prose. This is erotica at its literary best! I can't wait to know what happens to Beauty and Tristan in the conclusion of this (so far) memorable trilogy!
Rating:
Summary: Fan fiction?
Review: I loved the Beauty Series especially the first book which had the shock of the new about it. The sequel was enjoyable but lacked the impact of the first book.
It was a bdsm novel and those who fail to take that into account would not understand it...the world of BDSM is like the world of fairy stories with its own rules and conventions...and some damned wicked witches too :)
I am interested that Anne Rice is so anti fan fiction though. Isn't the Beauty Series fan fiction on Charles Perrault's character?
Rating: 
Summary: Same old spankings
Review: I was disappointed in "the Claiming of Sleeping Beauty", the first book of this trilogy. I thought the book had too thin a plot, poor character development, and so many spankings that I was bored half way through. However, I thought that since it was part of a trilogy that maybe I should read the second book to see if the plot develops and whether the characters become more complex as the story unfolds. Unfortunately, I was disappointed again. The story line remains thin with the characters falling into sexual situation after situation, never gaining much insight.
There is a twist of plot that bears mentioning. In the first novel, Beauty is a slave in a palace. However due to her rebelliousness she is sold as a slave to villagers. Also sold is the rebellious Prince Tristan. Tristan's master is Nicholas and a male to male sexual power struggle actually becomes the focus of much of the second novel. This section brought up two issues for me.
First, Rice seems to see sexuality and sexual orientation as extremely fluid. She assumes bi-sexuality to be a prevalent natural state of the human condition. In this regard she is similar to many sexual theorists. She never dwells on this however, she just assumes bi-sexuality to be normative and goes on from there.
Second, this leads to her bisexual characters becoming focused on the drama of relationship power dynamics. In the relationship between Nicholas and Tristan she allows the reader to see some change in the characters as Tristan moves from rebellion to submission on his own terms while she also reveals the thoughts of Nicholas as he becomes more emotionally involved as Tristan's vulnerability increases. Finally she allows two characters to change over time in relationship with each other and their interactions.
In the end, I still expected the plot to "thicken", for events to challenge the characters. I expected the characters to develop psychologically. In the end the second book was equal to the first, undeveloped and never reaching the level of good literature.
Rating: 
Summary: Become a slave and you will love it
Review: In the village Beauty and some others are auctioned to the civilians who transform them into working slaves : they have to work, the boys are turned into horses or poneys, and their masters and mistresses are degrading them and punishing them into a new stage of submission. They develop their dependence on this enslavement to the point of getting in love with the punishment and the punishing masters or mistresses. At this moment they cannot even imagine themselves leaving or escaping from that degrading position because their psyche has been made dependent on it, because their intellect has been centered on it. Their whole vision of the world and of themselves in the world holds only because of this enslavement that becomes the cornerstone of it, the apex of any intelligent or sensual reaction and action. They need the punishment to remain structured. Without the punishment they collapse into sheer non-existence, a scattered jigsaw puzzle whose pieces cannot be set back into any kind of a pattern. But this punishment is brutally interrupted by some sultanic pirates who take away these slaves to become the toys of their master, the Sultan. The Queen negociates that operation by lending these slaves of hers for a hefty amount of money and with the objective of them being given back in a couple of years. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Rating:
Summary: GREAT DISCRIPTIVE WRITING
Review: Ms. Rice certainly has the capacity for creative, discriptive writing. I had no idea there were so many ways to spank a person. As with the first novel in this trilogy, the idividual reader must make up their own mind as to whether or not this is true erotic literature. I suppose if you are into bondage, S&M and the like, then it truely would be. If not, then it is rather scary stuff and could, to some, be quite offensive. Ms. Rice certainly has a wonderful imagination. I did enjoy her writing and am not sorry I read this work. I cannot truely recommend it to everyone, as I feel it would not be everyones cup of tea...it certainly was not mine...but hey, that is just me. I do feel that Ms. Rice was rather brave in publishing this work, that alone would take nerve. Readers should be warned though, there is some hard stuff here. This is one of those books that probably will not become a first run movie anytime soon...well, on second thought, the way things are going, maybe I am wrong here.
Rating:
Summary: buy the book, it's better
Review: This audio version is very abridged. Many scenes are cut out.
Rating:
Summary: Steamier
Review: This is the continuation of The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, where Beauty is learning more of the arts of erotica in various form. Here, Beauty has managed to defy the Prince and as punishment, she is set off along with the other Prince and Princess off to the Village, where they are sold to any commoner who could afford them doing the Queen's bidding. In this book, Beauty is more focus on Prince Tristan, and always in hoping to be with him. But here is the ironic part of it all, this this book, it is far more focus on Prince Tristan's thoughts and feelings rather than beauty herself. This book btw, is far more steamier than the last and less plots rather and yes. Yummy!
Rating:
Summary: Best of the three
Review: This is the second book in the trilogy. Its main focus is the white male slave Tristan, making it my favorite of the three. It's got a really hot scene with Tristan and his master, so if you like guy/guy stuff, like me, you'll definitely want to get this.
Rating:
Summary: The Best of the Three
Review: Yes, I truly do think that this book is the best of the three for numerous reasons.
A lot of people reviewing this book have expressed that they were, shall we say, uncomforatble about the bi-sexuality in it. If they have read any of Rice's previous books, then what are they so shocked about? You know she is going to turn it all around, don't you? You know that she is going to make her characters experience everything in every way possible. Yet some people still squirm at that simple thought. All I can do is shake my head.
I am a super-straight single female. But I am not afraid to admit that this books is pretty hot. Yes, some things could never happen that way in real life, but that is why it's FANTASY. The relationship that I found particularily touching is the one forming between Tristian and his new master. At first I really hated him for being so cruel to Tristian, but after a certain bedroom scene...I changed my mind. I mean, they are falling in love. A strange kind of love, but it really suckered me into it.
The way they interact as master and slave works for them, cause they both love what they are doing. His master loves punishing him, and Tristian loves to suffer for his master. In the end, it's very sweet. Now, whenever Tristian got punished by his master, I got really turned on because I knew that it meant more.
I recognized a lot of changes in Beauty as well. She really loves being punished now, doesn't she? In the first book she felt so humiliated and scared and unable to confirm to any commands, but now she understands pretty much everything, and she honeslty adores it! I mean, I would too, all under those beautiful men's attentions...
All in all, this book was the best becuase it explained Tristian so well -- it was almost like I could see into his soul. And because of Beauty's changes. Those of you that wanted more reason and a sense of realism, do keep in mind that you are reading an EROTICA fantasy novel, so stop preaching morals as if you were a priest, and stop critiquing it like it's supposed to be an Emily Dickison poem. For what it is, Beauty's Punishment is turly a great achievement.
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