I suddenly felt like reading Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, having read The Stepford Wives and The Boys From Brazil.
Interesting, entertaining, though not all that scary. And a bit dated. When it came out, it must have been considered really scary. Remember those movie posters? "Pray for Rosemary's baby." In all fairness, we know how it ends now. I haven't seen the film, but who doesn't know?
As a piece of classic horror fiction, though... I thought the intro to this edition made a good point - that this novel had taken horror fiction out of distant places - far off country estates, castles, Transylvania - and brought it home to your own block of flats. Even today, the average YA scary book usually begins with the heroine moving to a small country town where things are different from the big city, on the assumption that it's easier to get away with horrible things in distant fictional places. Home is supposed to be where you're safe, but not for Rosemary. She can't count on the nice neighbours, she can't even count on her own husband! That IS scary, even if the Satanic plot isn't.
Still worth reading, even if all the publicity over the years has told you the ending.
Interesting, entertaining, though not all that scary. And a bit dated. When it came out, it must have been considered really scary. Remember those movie posters? "Pray for Rosemary's baby." In all fairness, we know how it ends now. I haven't seen the film, but who doesn't know?
As a piece of classic horror fiction, though... I thought the intro to this edition made a good point - that this novel had taken horror fiction out of distant places - far off country estates, castles, Transylvania - and brought it home to your own block of flats. Even today, the average YA scary book usually begins with the heroine moving to a small country town where things are different from the big city, on the assumption that it's easier to get away with horrible things in distant fictional places. Home is supposed to be where you're safe, but not for Rosemary. She can't count on the nice neighbours, she can't even count on her own husband! That IS scary, even if the Satanic plot isn't.
Still worth reading, even if all the publicity over the years has told you the ending.
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