Rating: Summary: Quite possibly the worst book ever written. Review: I felt as if I were part of a bad dream...a very bad dream....only it wasn't a dream. I have often heard people say that the author wrote this one for the money. There is no doubt that Mr. Levin did exactly this. My only question is how can he stand the embarrassment of having his name on the cover. I am still getting over the ending. While Rosemary's Baby was in no way great literature...it was an amusing little read..this piece of rubbish cannot even consider itself a distant cousin.
Rating: Summary: Supreme Disappointment Review: I picked up Son of Rosemary without any expectations, having read no reviews of this novel. By the time I finished reading this book, I had to re-read the cover, to make sure that it really WAS Ira Levin's name I had seen there. What a disappointment this book was. I felt that Levin cheapened the original Rosemary's Baby by writing such a hurried, weakly-plotted book. I felt absolutely no empathy for Rosemary at all; in fact, by the end of the book I was kind of hoping she WOULD be destroyed by Satan, or by her son. Those incest-wannabe scenes more or less creeped me out, and there were so many loose ends and so many outright boring passages that I lost interest quickly. The denouement was not only a cheat, it was a slap in the face to Levin's fans. I would not recommend this novel to anyone who has read Rosemary's Baby and loved it; don't sully your beautiful memory.
Rating: Summary: I've figured it out!!! Review: After reading Ira Levin's "Son of Rosemary," I pulled out my Scrabble tiles and started working. You would not believe the number of words I came up with from the term "ROAST MULES". Unfortunately,they were always little four and five letter words, never the ten letter "honest and pleasing" solution promised. Then earlier today my best friend Ruby and I figured it out. The answer is "SOMERSAULT".
"Rosemary's Baby" was the first book I had ever read by Ira Levin, and I loved it. I have read it multiple times and each time discover something new. What I loved was that it seemed so possible. Why couldn't the devil be called to Earth by a group of elderly Satan worshippers to mate with a woman who was to be the mother of his child? It seemed sensible enough. However, I didn't find "Son of Rosemary" to be as logical. Rosemary was in a coma for 27 years and woke to find her adored Andy was now the most loved man in the world. Okay. I accepted that. Then it got weird.
I'm sure that Levin was tired of being pressured into writing a sequel and wanted to end it all. But still! I would have been much happier if it had ended with my favorite line, "I LIE! Don't you know that by now?".
I'll admit that this book was not as good as the original. I'll even admit that it wasn't as good as any of Levin's other books. However, I don't think that it was as bad as some people are making it out to be. I read it once and I'm glad I did, but once was enough.
Rating: Summary: A horrible let down Review: After I finished this book, I was so disappointed I threw my copy in the trash (and a hardcover at that) Aside from sloppy writing and non exsistent characterization, Ira Levin has forever ruined Rosemary's Baby for me with his horrid cop out ending. Why didn't he just entitle the book "Only Writing this For The Money?" Its blatantly obvious and a betrayal to all who read and loved the original.
Rating: Summary: A major disappointment Review: It is a major disappointment to find this novel to be so total a failure. The author of the seminal horror novel 'Rosemary's Baby' and the wonderfully surprising "A Kiss before Dying' seems to have given up caring about his characters or his readers. There is not a moment of suspense, mystery, or suprise in the book. The 'surprise' ending is a shopworn cliche, which betrays the original book and those of us who so admire it. I wish that the author hadn't bothered writing this terrible waste of his time and mine.
Rating: Summary: Reading this most anticipated book became a chore. Review: I was really excited about reading the sequel to "Rosemary's Baby". I knew that the sequel wouldn't be as good but, I didn't really think it would be this bad. Character development was nonexistent. Every character seemed "diluted". The whole book seemed rushed, as if Mr. Levin wrote it under a weekly deadline. The "incestuous" feelings did not work. The book read like a Reader's Digest Condensed version of a really bad book. Now I know why it took Mr. Levin so long to write a sequel. He really didn't want to and his heart wasn't in it.
Rating: Summary: Dazed, confused... and yet, still frightened Review: I had a friend buy me the book, since I couldn't get it here in Mexico. I adored the original, since it is a true modern gothic classic (actually, the only modern gothic of our time) but now, after reading and re-reading it, I'm with conflicting felings. Since I waited for almost a year to read it, I devoured it. I still love Levin's prose and style (in fact if I'm a novelist now, it's just as much his fault as it was Joyce Carol Oates', Peter Straub's, Tru Capote's etc...) but I must admit it is far, far from achieving a classic status. I missed lots of things, the urban feel, Rosie's friends and conflicts, and so on... (even Guy) but in the end, I felt uneasy. I don't know if being thrown back to august, 1965, before the original happens, is a cop-out, a deus ex machina, a Dallas ouvre... or the single most frightening twist of fate I've found in a year or two. See, after all, Satan is the prince of lies, so is this hell? I don't know. Still, dear mr. Levin, know that we still love you. It's just that... well, I don't know what to think. But it was enthralling anyway, so you could say it had to happen, and it's still a good book, in many levels. But as Rosemary does in the end, we should look ahead for something better from this great novelist.
Rating: Summary: Not great, but not that bad Review: Sure, this book could have been better, but it's not as bad as some of the reviews suggest. As for the ending, I wonder if it really is a "Dallas" situation? Maybe Rosemary isn't exactly where she seems to be. In any case, there is another nice surprise at the end. Has anyone figured out the anagram "ROAST MULES?"
Rating: Summary: Close Cover Before Reading Review: No review you have read of this book can possibly prepare you for how thoroughly bad it is. You would find more literary value on the back of a box of cornflakes. You would derive more pleasure by reading the warning on a book of matches ("Close Cover Before Striking"). Indeed, this book should have a warning on the dust-jacket: "Close Cover Before Reading". It's the only way to protect the reading public from the embarassments it contains. I don't know whether Mia Farrow should be more offended by Woody Allen's seduction of her adoptive daughter, or Ira Levin's dedication of this piece of offal to her. Levin telegraphs everything in this book in advance. There is no mystery, no suspense. If you wish to think well of Ira Levin, get "A Kiss Before Dying", and pretend that this book was never written. Here are a couple of examples of what passes for wit and creativity in Ira's world: 1) he has an evangelist named "Rob Patterson" (instead of Pat Robertson! Get it??); 2) he has a radio talk show host named "Lush Rambeau" (instead of Rush Limbaugh! Get it??) Yuk, yuk, yuk. Yuck.
Rating: Summary: Very disappointed, the book was simplistic in style. Review: I was excited to read the sequel but was disappointed. The writing was jerky in style and disconnected making it hard to follow. The ending was a disappointment also. It strikes me as a book very quickly written and only for the money. It has no heart and I don't recommend it to my friends. It was a waste of a read.
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