Rating: 
Summary: Somersault
Review: !!Warning!!-expounding on spoilers in other reviews!!I hadn't realised that there was a sequel to Ira Levin's 60's masterpiece, so despite the bad reviews, I picked up a copy. Well, it's a short read. I started at 7 and ended at nine. Not to say it was enthralling, and not to say that you couldn't see a lot that was coming from about six miles away. Rosemary wakes up after 25-odd years in a coma, gets over that fact in about 5 minutes (feel free to dig out your copy of Stephen King's "Dead Zone" to refresh your memory about the diffculty that long-time coma victims have with physical therapy), meets up with bigger-than-Jesus Andy, who's group wants to get everone to light a candle at the same moment- Greenwich Mean Time on Midnight of the New Millenium. (Yes, I know, the new millenium started on Jan 1, 2001. send your letters to Ira.) It's very important to these people that everyone understands the time zone differences- god forbid that someone may light the candle early! You can see where this is going. In any case, there's a lot made about another anagram (that goes nowhere), the whereabouts of Rosemary's ex Guy (which goes nowhere), and Damie- er- Andy, having a bit more.... uh. affection for Rosemary than... well let's just say there isn't a Hallmark card for it. And it's reciprocated (which I wish went nowhere) Another reviewer gave away the ending, but personally, I think they were wrong. The last chapter isn't telling you that all that happened in the two books before was a dream, it's telling you that sometime even the prince of darkness keeps a promise. This book will have the curious effect that the color remake of "Psycho" had on me. You will immediately toss it aside and pick up the original. Too bad it makes his early works seem like a fluke.
Rating: 
Summary: Here is my view on the ending
Review: *SPOILER ALERT* Okay, so this book is a dog. But I think there is more to the ending than a "Dallas" cop-out. At the end of the book, when Rosemary chooses Satan over dying from the gas, she is basically selling her soul and damning herself to hell. She wakes up, thinking it's all a dream. But then, she gets the mysterious call from Hutch and realizes she IS in her own personal hell. Her hell is reliving the whole terrible situation over and over again. (Hence the "somersaults" anagram--she will have to relive the horrors of being trapped by the coven, being impregnated by Satan, etc. over again.) This is suggested by Guy's statement that there is a free apartment open in an old victorian house like the one in the first book. Rosemary is speechless at the end of the book because this time, she KNOWS the horror that is about to befall her, and knows she's going to have to relive it. Anyway, it's still the dumbest book ever published.
P.S. Has anyone noticed how those "Love ya Dubya" pins Republicans are wearing in support of the Bush campaign bear a creepy, uncanny resemblance to the "I Love Andy" pins in this book?!
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: It stinks.
Review: For social commentary and suspense, try "This Perfect Day" instead. If you must read it for yourself, borrow it from the library. In my opinion, Rosemary's Son is a unforunate waste of paper, time and money from a normally quite gifted writer, Ira Levin. A real clunker.
Rating:
Summary: interesting
Review: I grew up adoring Ira Levin's work. Besides the more popular stuff, I've always thought that "This Perfect Day" was a creative and wonderfully unusual take on the idea of utopia/dystopia - and I'd still recommend it very highly. Might make a great movie one day, or maybe it would've in the 70s. So I picked this sequel to Rosebary's Baby up at my local library and was thrilled - because I had no idea it existed. Read it in three days while on a light vacation. Wish I hadn't. It begins reasonably enough, with Rosemary getting accustomed to what's changed during her coma. She meets her unexpectedly nice son, who welcomes her into his worldwide cult. Then, he hits on her and tries to rape her. More than once. And, here comes the spoiler. At the end, she meets his father, Satan, and things come to a climactic confrontation. And then she wakes up next to Guy, safe in her bed, and it turns out all of it never happened. It was all a dream. Really. Both books. It was all a dream. From the master of the twist, the genius of plot, the hero of the unexpected outcome. Sigh.
Rating:
Summary: interesting
Review: In this gripping sequel to Rosemary's Baby, Rosemary wakes up 28 years after being thrown into a coma, which took place six years after part one. Her son Andy begins to display an increasingly ominous obsession with her, and she eventually begins to wonder whether he is the Antichrist or the second coming of Christ. A very interesting and highly anticipated sequel to the unforgettable classic is somewhat of a letdown, yet a satisfying read. Was brought to film in the inferior, disgusting, forgettable, cliched, and utterly distasteful The Beast Within, which was followed by the great but unknown The Evil Within.
Rating:
Summary: This one,s worth a double-take
Review: SPOILER ALERT-To defend this pretty-good sequel, I'm having to give away the ending. Don't read this post until you have read the book--and have done your part to noodle out its puzzling conclusion. Then tell me if you think I'm right!
Why so many bad reviews? First off, let's be real. Most horror books are nothing but brain candy. When you come to one that requires reflection, it's disconcerting. We were all expecting a typical horror story so that we could be entertained, close the cover and move on to the next read. But this Hershey's Kiss turns out to be more of a Slo-Poke (I betray my age), and we are asked to chew on it awhile to get our nickel's worth.
Were you annoyed by that last page--discovering that ROAST MULES was not to be revealed, and realizing that the book's entire point hinged on it? I enjoy subtlety, but am averse to working anagrams so that I can THEN assemble an author's meaning. The ending would have spun out much more smoothly had the anagram been solved at some point, and I don't think the story would have lost a gram of subtlety.
Nevertheless, the novel is successful and here's why. First, this was no "It was only a dream ... or was it?" cornball kid-book ending--unless, in the manner of Elias Howe, Rosemary was able to invent roller blades and the Palm Pilot as she dozed. The conversation with Hutch assures us (doggedly) that the dream was a vision. Of course, that's not enough to keep the book out of the bush-leagues, but there's more.
To save you a couple of aspirin, the solution to the anagram is somersault. Some have interpreted this as cyclical imagery, suggesting that Rosemary is damned to repeat her ordeal for eternity. However, a somersault is not a cycle. While one does alight in the same posture/position as before, he finds himself a few steps advanced. That's what's happening here. At St. Pat's, Rosemary prays for a sign, and for guidance. The unexpected response turns out to be a full replay--but this time, with the benefit of experience. The last words of the book are, "She looked ahead." That's a lot different from her starting point in Rosemary's Baby. Rosemary never had a chance in the first go-round. Anyone, no matter how good or how clever, would have been pulled in and defeated. But this next time, her mettle and faith can play a role, and depending on how she performs, she'll either save the world or find herself once again on that stuffy elevator. Though the somersault gives her a fighting chance, this won't be a cake walk. `We're about to be thrown out, it's a free year at the Dakota, look, it was only a dream,' and etc. She'll doubtless go on to the Dakota, and there she'll find out how much she learned in the practice round.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother With This One
Review: The one thing I like about Ira Levin's books are the indepth descriptions. Rosemary's Baby was written 1967 and you really felt as if you were there. Son of Rosemary was set in 1999 and Levin doesn't seem to do as well with modern day atmosphere.
In the sequel, we learn that Rosemary Reilly divorced her loathsome husband Guy, who had sold her body to the building's coven for insemination by Satan. The coven put her into a coma when the resulting child was six years old and she was secretly planning to flee with him. Rosemary comes out of the coma 27 years later, just as the last member of the coven, a retired dentist, is run over by a taxi. She then goes about discovering what her little demon-eyed tike has been up to in the interim. By 1999, Andy is 33 years old, the same as Jesus at the time of the crucifixion. The difference is that, unlike Jesus at that age, he is the most popular man in the world. For whatever reason, most of the people in the world wear lapel buttons that say "I Love Andy". Soon they start wearing "I Love Rosemary" buttons, too. He does not ask much of his admirers. All that he requests is that everyone in the world light a candle at midnight, Greenwich Mean Time, on New Year's Eve, 1999. Exactly at 12:00 a.m. A harmless gesture. Surely. Even more remarkable than the Antichrist's friends are his enemies, who seem to consist mostly of the followers of Ayn Rand. Known generically as "P.A."s (Paranoid Atheists), they are the only people in the world who do not buy Andy's piety. The main problem they pose, however, is not that they threaten his personality cult, but that they might not light their candles with everyone else.
The little details are lovingly recalled in the new book. The tannis root. The scrabble. And then, of course, there is the wicked anagram, ROAST MULES. One word.
Rating: 
Summary: Chilling ending - work to understand it.
Review: The thing about this book is, if you don't take time to understand the ending, you're going to feel cheated. But, it takes effort to understand the ending: it's complex, very Donnie Darko. The clues are all there, so work them out, and you'll come to one of the most chilling conclusions in horror history.
Despite the cliches of satan's son taking over big corporations, and organising mass summoning of the anti-christ for the millennium (which automatically rules the title out of being a 4 star rating), this is a great little read. It is a little read, a one-sitting wonder - but that's just as much down to Levin's wordmastery which makes you keep turning those pages as it is to the length of the book.
I am disappointed to see so many negative reviews, and I'd urge the reviewers to give those final pages a very careful re-read and think about what's really going on.
I can't guarantee that you're going to like it, I can't guarantee that you're going to get it, but I would urge any fan of Rosemary's Baby to give her Son a try.
Rating:
Summary: If you're wondering why you never knew there was a sequel...
Review: There's a reason for that. Rosemary's Baby is one of my favorite scary movies, so I was up for reading it even though my expectations were low. Halfway through it I realized the magnitude of this book's worthlessness, but I just kept hoping it was going to get at least a little bit scary. I shouldn't have bothered trying to muddle through the awkward dialogue, the lack of action, and the extremely one-dimensional characters. I realized upon closing it that it was the worst book I can remember ever reading, and I want my time back! It's almost like someone assigned a junior high kid to continue the story of Rosemary's Baby, and you're reading one of the worst ones turned in. I am not familiar with any of Levin's other work, but I feel positive that no matter what its quality, just about anyone could have come up with a more interesting, scarier, and better written sequel. The only reason I'm even writing this review when there are already so many negative ones is that I need to vent about what a waste of paper it is!
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