Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good read until the lame ending
Review: While there is no way that "Rosemary's Baby" is a literary masterpiece, I genuinely enjoyed reading this book until Part 3. Parts 1 and 2 clipped along at a nice pace (although some parts dragged a bit), and generally held my attention. The conclusion of the book, however, sucked. When Rosemary goes from horror, shock and disbelief to acceptance in a matter of a few paragraphs (well, I guess my son being the son of Satan isn't so bad after all!!!!!) the book lost me. A better ending would have been to throw the baby out the window (which Rosemary actually considered) because it would have avenged everything the witches had done to Rosemary throughout the book. Instead, we get her lame acceptance of her freakish offspring, which smacked of a cop-out on Levin's part. Other than that, though, the book was entertaining. Not deep, just entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Only O.K.
Review: The entire first half of this book drags. They move in, meet the neighbors, and try to have a baby. It also becomes incredibly apparent that Rosemary herself is an idiot. Her refusal to see reason makes her scenes frustrating to read. The suspense is not totally nonexistent however. It comes in subtle drops along the way. When Hutch begins to suspect Rosemary's neighbors of being more than what they claim, the plot speeds up considerably. I found myself reading what I thought would turn out to be a pretty good book after all, when it ended. This is not a well thought out conclusion and it is not at all satisfying. The subject matter and the midsection were so good that if the ending was handled with more care and Rosemary had more sense, I would have excused the slow start and jumped the rating up a star.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't take it too seriously
Review: After all, how seriously can you take a book in which Rosemary's baby turns out to have horn buds, claws and the eyes of an owl (or something like that)? Obviously, this little baby isn't ever going to gain too much power unless he takes a file to his skull protrusions, wears gloves constantly and contacts. Unless he became a freaky rock star. I haven't read "Son of Rosemary". . .wonder if that's how he turned out? Anyhow: this book is a black comedy that provides several chills along the way. Guy, Rosemary's husband, is such a duplicitous jerk (a character type that Levin used again in 'The Stepford Wives') but Rosemary has no inkling as to what he has done to further his career. Her neighbors seem to be such friendly, caring old folks. Her obstetrician delivers all the 'society babies'. Only one person suspects that things aren't what they're cracked up to be, but he makes an unfortunate exit midway through the novel. This book is good, but not as well-done as the movie, with its creepy soundtrack, wonderful direction and terrific actors. FYI: the movie is incredibly similar to the book, down to the decor of the apartments and pages of dialogue. The reason for that is that Roman Polanski, the director, had no idea that he could take liberties with the novel and thought he was legally obligated to stay true to the author's intentions. Would that more movie directors working today thought the same!
Rating: 
Summary: Not "blood-and-guts" scary, but scary nonetheless.
Review: "Rosemary's Baby" is one of the best books I ever happened upon. It isn't scary in the "eww...gross!" way, it's more of a social horror book. It makes you think about your faith, who you can trust, and your creepy next-door neighbors. I recommend this to anyone, not just horror fans.
Rating:
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST
Review: Ira Levin got everything right when he penned this book. A simple tale of a young couple going home-hunting becomes a battle of good vs. evil. Poor Rosemary, being the unassuming housewife to (a) Guy that throws his family out the window for success in show business. The neighbors are a kindly old couple that happen to be relatives of witches. Ah, yes, what you must watch for when getting a home. The ending is a little wacky, but will hold you in suspense. Read the book, then check your neighbors.
Rating:
Summary: Generally a great horror, brace yourself for ending
Review: Levin's Rosemarry's Baby was an truly excellent book with an intruiging plot, and interesting characters. The end was a combination of freakiness, horror, and somewhat of a dissappointment. On the whole, though, it was a great writing piece.
Rating:
Summary: Scary as ever
Review: Okay, ignore anything everybody else says- this is a great book. I read it a few years ago, and yes, I already knew the ending. But it still managed to scare the bejeezus out of me. A classic horror novel, well-written and well-plotted. And the movie is not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: A classic horror book, but not a must-read
Review: Listed in Cawthorn's and Moorcock's "Fantasy: The 100 Best Books".A Sunday night some weeks back I got a chance to see the movie on a revival show. What an excellent film! I decided to finally take out a copy of the novel I had kept unopen for some time and read it. The movie is faithful to the book, but this is a case in which the adaptation was better than the original. Mr. Levin shows a knack for writing plain-vanilla prose, almost as exciting as the laundry list. He manages to make his tale rather unsuspenseful which was sad to me, for a story like this one, where very little unnatural things happen, works on getting to your nerves. And it didn't get to mine. The movie, on the other hand, streamlines the tale, and delivers the goods. I feel Tim Cavanaugh put it right in his FEED column, when he declared Levin is a bit of a hack. The concept of "Rosemary's Baby" is great, but the treatment is color-by-numbers. Now, denying the historical importance of the novel would be making it a disservice. When this book first appeared, the larger reading public had barely come across anything like it, and it helped bring horror to the best-selling mainstream. And its influence in later writers is obvious. Hints of Stephen King's style seem to pop up here. If you are a horror fan who just wants the goods (guts and scares), you may be disappointed by this one. If you are new to horror, or you have an scholar interest in it, this is a basic book to know.
Rating: 
Summary: It wasn't very good.
Review: Although the book was intriguing at times, the story deteriorated into absurdity with the ending and denouement. However, everyone else seems to like it, so if one likes horror, one would probably enjoy this book or if one is a from a Western religion, he may find more horror in it.
Rating:
Summary: THE SOURCE OF A GREAT FILM
Review: Perhaps, like most, my intial exposure to this story was through Roman Polanski, Mia Farrow, John Cassavettes, Ruth Gordon & Sydney Blackmer who commit to film cinematic mastery. The book, however, is more than just a basis; it is the movie! Levin must have been pleased with Polanski's vision because it intercepts the imagery of the book so well. The movie is without a doubt one of the two best Polanski ever made (Chinatown is the other) but what of the book? One of the major criticisms I noted in previous reviews is that the book isn't scary enough. That is as may be, the horror of this book is not really meant to scare your pants off anymore than Goethe's Faust is, than Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The horror is implicit, it is within and it is very subtle. It's not the Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Clive Barker, H.P. Lovecraft type of scary story. The subtlety is in Rosemary's journey to self awareness: She finds she can't trust the elderly neighbors, her doctors and even her husband as she is reeled into the devilish nightmare of her worse fears she finds she must look to herself to save this child for whom she suffers so horribly. And, if for nothing else, Polanski should be recognized for, in his detail oriented handling of the manuscript, emphasizing this subtlety. The book is about the times it was written: JFK and Jackie O, along with the pope have speaking parts (even if only in a dream sequence). But in this sense Rosemary is every modern married woman whose soul is sold (in a metaphoric sense in most cases) to the subservience of her husband. And Guy is all about actors playing parts but never really committing to anything but their own egotistic success. Not only does Guy sell his wife to the witches but then he acts like a jerk to her. He has absolutely no moral dilemma in blinding the rival actor who "got the part" or for killing Rosemary's father figure, Hutch, and yet all the time playing the hard-working husband humoring his crazy wife. Polanski's interpretation so well reveals this that actually reading the book may be considered superfluous by some. The scene where Rosemary dreams of the nun at the Catholic School while Minnie Castavet speaks on the other side of the wall about a recent suicide perfectly exemplifies this. Even though the symbolism of the bricking up of the school windows is not explained in the film as it is in the book, the surreal creepiness of it gets the point across that things are not always what they seem. Not only is Minnie to be feared but also Sister Agnes (who does not read like a devout catholic, not only can Dr. Sapirstien not be trusted, but neither can the normal Dr. Hill who puts more faith in the Sapirstien's reputation (who knows how many people he must have killed or put in comas to get where he is) than in Rosemary's desperation. Can Kennedy be trusted, can the Pope? How many famous well respected people have sold their souls to get where they are? The prose is readable, intriguing and enjoyable even if it does not extend to a level of high literature. But the fact that it served as a backbone of such a great movie is reason in and of itself to want to read it. You can even see the movie first and it does not detract.
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