Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful lie
Review: I recently watched Stephen King's Rose Red on DVD. Unfortunately, I had missed the mini-series when came on ABC, so I ended up getting the DVD from a friend to watch, who never came to reclaim the DVD. I watched the interview that was on the DVD and found out that Rose Red was indeed a real house. Then, there was mention of Ellen Rimbauer's, the mistress of Rose Red, diary being found. It was edited and being sold. I liked the movie very much, and I was anxious to read the journal.Ellen Rimbauer was the wife of a unfaithful older man named John (I think his name was) Rimbauer. He's built an extravagant house that seems to have taken on a mind of its own. Though, no one wants to believe that. The house seems to hate men, which is evident through their mysterious, violent deaths, and wants to harbor the women forever (evident through the disappearances of the women rather than their deaths). The house was built on an old Native American burial ground, but there's something more there. Ellen feels that this is her doing in some way. She has often prayed that bad things would happen to his husband due to his raging libido, and now, she feels that she's created a monster that needs the blood of men to keep growing. Rooms appear and disappear. Stairs and hallways appear where there were prviously none. The house is a living thing, and it's vengeful. All I have to say about this book is that it's a beautiful lie. I'll admit when I heard about the diary on the DVD I thought it would be genuine, but when I read it, I realized it was all just a farce. While I thought the "diary" was interesting, I never once believed that it was real. There's just a feel of realism that you get from diaries, and I never got that from this book. I also don't believe that Stephen King wrote it. It was too poetically verbose to really be his writing. Stephen King has a distinctive way of writing, and this is not it. This is definitely an interesting read. I enjoyed reading about the trials of Ellen and her handmaid (and best friend) Sukeena, an African medicine woman. It was nice to see Ellen go from being a naive "child" to a strong woman. But please, don't go into this book a.) believing it's real and/or b.)believing this is King's work.
Rating: 
Summary: Mysteriously paranormal piece
Review: You could imagine my surprise when one day while cleaning through my brothers' closet, I come across a book. Now, I being the only reader in the family, it was odd for a book to be in their closet. The book was 'The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer', a book that didn't look farmiliar. From there I asked everyone else in the house if they might know how this book got there, but no one had a clue. Needless to say, I curiously picked the book up and began reading. I believe I read for 3 hours. I was nearly finished with the book itself. What surprised me was how caught up I let myself get, where I actually felt like I was living Ellen's life, and 3 hours seemed like a minute. The book is chillingly real, and I suggest it to anyone and everyone who is in the mood to read of the 'uknown' in such a way Ellen describes.
Rating:
Summary: Gothic is Good
Review: By far the most remarkable book I have ever read. This is the diary of Ellen Rimbauer, a real-life person, who tells her story at the beginning of the 1900s. Her husband organises the construction of their home, Rose Red, but it is a dangerous building. The most disturbing psychic phenomena you are likely to read. The only question I have is "why?" How did these events actually happen? This is a very inspiring book to me as a writer. (A+)
Rating: 
Summary: Mansions of the Mind
Review: It never hurts for a book dealing with the paranormal and horror to have a little mystery surrounding who actually wrote the book, along with all the media hype promoting the TV mini-series. For the record, this was written by Ridley Pearson, not Stephen King, though King was certainly aware of its gestation. But who wrote it matters little versus the prime requisite: is it readable? Does it provoke the spine-tingling feeling that some of the best in this genre can? It's certainly readable. The characterization of the main character Ellen Rimbauer is truly excellent. She starts as a woman who is a rather naive nineteen year old, and progressing through her thoughts and feelings about marrying a man twenty years her senior with a reputation as a 'ladies man'. How she manages her husband and his wayward ways forms one of the continuing lynch-pins of this tale. As she matures, she also starts to feel some attraction to those of her own sex, the depiction of which I felt was well done for a lady of Victorian sensibilities. But later, we are given a portrait of a woman who is slowly losing her grip on reality (or as an alternative explanation, the world she inhabits becomes truly strange). The house she lives in, and eventually becomes almost a prisoner of, Rose Red, is really the other main character, as it grows from the greatest mansion in Seattle to a house known for disappearances, murders, and suicides. On the basis of character alone, this is a worthwhile read. But on the other aspect, the paranormal land of ghosts, inexplicable fears and visions, and houses with desires of their own, this book doesn't succeed as well. Perhaps I found the parallels with a real house of mystery, the Winchester Mystery House located in San Jose, CA, (and at which my son is a tour guide) to be just a little too strong. It too had a magnate husband and a lady mistress who, especially in her later years, believed that she would live forever if only she would keep building on the house, leading to some very strange architectural features of stairways leading directly into ceilings and doors that open to a three-story drop. Within this book, the appearance of ghostly visions, the voices at a seance, the concept of the house being possessed by the ghosts of Indians who were buried on the site of this house, never seemed to quite gel with me, never produced the frisson that I was hoping for. I think, perhaps, that I found these elements to be a little too standard, with little originality to them. The literary device of enfolding this whole story within a supposed doctoral dissertation and university investigation was a nice touch, but added little to it as a story, and it would have read just as well without it. Still, a quite entertaining read, with an excellent look inside the mind of someone who changes from a very normal woman to something very strange, and making her journey to this mindscape very believable in terms of her own thought-processes and beliefs. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Rating:
Summary: what Anastasia thought of it.
Review: I THOUGHT THAT THE BOOK WAS VERY GOOD. IT KEPT ME INTERESTED IN IT THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE BOOK. (WHEN MOST CAN GET A LITTLE SLOW FROM TIME TO TIME.) I WILL HAVE TO SAY THAT THE MOVIE TO ME LEFT A LITTLE TO BE DESIRED, ALTHOUGH I HAVE TO ADMIT THAT I HAD AN IDEA IN MY OWN MIND AS TO WHAT I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE AND IT WAS QUITE DIFFERENT. I DONT THINK THAT THE MOVIE WAS BAD, I JUST THOUGHT IT WOULD BE BETTER THAN IT WAS. MOST MOVIES FAIL IN COMPARISON TO THE BOOK. THAT GOES FOR ANY AUTHOR. SO IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING READING THE BOOK, I WOULD DEFINITLY SAY GO FOR IT.ITS DEFINITLY WORTH YOUR TIME!
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but very slow
Review: The title says it all. This is not a bad book, but extremely slow and hard to get through (at least it was to me). I am not sure to what degree Stephen King is involved with it, but I don't like everything he writes either. I loved Desperation, Black House, Dreamcatcher, and many other of his books. I could hardly get through Hearts in Atlantis and From a Buick 8. Your mileage may vary.
Rating:
Summary: Worth a read
Review: This little novel caused a huge splash back around the time of the Rose Red miniseries. Then, of course, came the debate of who really wrote it...and whether that person was Stephen King. We found out that he did not. However, the author does mimic the style of King to a large degree. While the book does have some really slow moments, for the most part it's a decently intriguing story. Ellen is the young wife of a Seattle oil baron...and her story is full of non-vanilla sex (not the prudish among us) disappearing people and a possessed house.
Rating:
Summary: Ok, the secret is out!
Review: This book was actually written by Ridley Pearson, a friend of Stephen King. Sort of the background of the TV mini-series Rose Red. Very interesting book and gives the mini-series new depth. And guess what? The Diary is being made into a tv show too!
Rating:
Summary: Never Mind Hype-Highly Entertaining
Review: No matter what impression you happen to be under (and I was under them all, I think, at one point or another) as to the identity and/or authenticity of writer and diary, the bottom line is that this book, the back story of the mansion Rose Red, is both an enlightening companion to the TV miniseries and a highly enjoyable read in its own right. I'd recommend just forgetting about everything you've heard and get down to page-flipping!
Rating:
Summary: who really wrote it
Review: From the Stephen King web site Look under The Answers (Now it can be told--the actual author of The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer is suspense novelist (and Rock Bottom Remainder bass guitarist) Ridley Pearson. Ridley did a great job--I couldn't have done better myself. Here's hoping you will continue to support Ridley's work by buying a copy of "The Art of Deception.")
Great book.
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