After having read the Vampires Chronicles and the Mayfair Witches series, I decided I could delve into something a bit more risque and picked up The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice. This was the worst mistake. This was such a weird and boring read, which is wild to think considering it’s supposed to be super erotic. Maybe it was for its time, but it absolutely did not do it for me.
The premise is a Prince finds Sleeping Beauty, has sex with her comatose body, and in doing so, wakes her. He then goes on to claim Sleeping Beauty as his sex slave as is custom in his home kingdom. He is openly lewd with her in front of her own father and forces her to parade around nude so that townsfolk can see and touch her. He brings her to his kingdom where she is to be taught on how to be the perfect pet. Now, this could be exciting and interesting. It could make for a really good erotic read, if not a romantic read because there’s zero romance in this. But, the writing is so flat and repetitive it feels almost clinical. Again, this could be because this was published back in the 80s and perhaps Rice was trying to keep things as tame as she could considering what she was writing, but honestly, I think she just wasn’t good enough at writing sex. There is so much spanking as though that is the most extreme sexual act that could be portrayed. It just is repeated over and over and over AND OVER again. Everyone gets spanked. There are punishments and noncon scenarios all over the place but none of it is sexy. None of it is interesting. It is so extremely dry to read that I couldn’t even feel offended because of how boring it is.
I absolutely would never recommend The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice. It fails to tell an exciting story, it fails to provide enticing erotica, and fails to even be offensive. This is a repetitive mess with only a handful of sexual acts and kinks played on a loop without any colorful writing. Maybe if you have an intense impact/spanking kink you’ll enjoy this, but anyone else, look elsewhere. There is no need to delve this deep.
