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A review by mabelsyrup
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Rosemary’s baby is one of a kind, like there’s a reason why it’s a cult classic.
Very mundane and slow paced, with characters that aren’t terribly interesting one way or another, very little actually happens... and yet... it really worked out for me! The pacing of the story and the deliberate monotony of their lives served imho to further the idea of this young woman possibly going insane. Rosemary isn’t an interesting main character; she’s a regular stay at home young wife that isn’t very wordly or experienced, TO ME that helps sell the horrible idea that this simple girl who lives and breathes for her husband still got sold to the devil in exchange for some acting gigs, it’s actually sickening, like the woman would leave. her. house if Guy’s asks her to bc he has to "practice his lines"and he has the audacity to let some cult r4pe her gaslight her and psychologically abus3 her... and you know what I hated most about Guy? that he had the balls to tell Rosemary that after it’s done they’ll move to Cali and live the dream life they always wanted SHUT THE FVCK UP LEAVE HER ALONE
But alas...
Another thing i really enjoyed was the writing and how, again going back to the mundaneness, every little thing that seemed a bit off or slightly suspicious would ring alarms in my head; as it did with Rosemary. Throughout the whole book we’re second guessing and plotting and thinking, is it actually a cult, or am i just paranoid? Are the next door neighbors being off-putting and pushy because they’re trying to bring the Antichrist or because they’re elderly and lonely?
Obviously the book has its faults, the slow pacing can only work for so long and there’s the occasional homophobic line that i expected from a white man in the 60´s, but despite all that I would highly recommend reading this book; if you’re intrigued by it, if you’ve seen the movie (like me) and want to see if it’s as good. but not if you DIDN’T like the movie and hope that this is better, it’s about the same or perhaps sliiightly lower.
"there are good houses too, houses where people keep falling in love and getting married and having babies" "Probably there are, only one never hears of them. It’s the stinkers that get the publicity"
"She opened her eyes and looked into yellow furnace-eyes, smelled sulphur and tannis root, felt wet breath on her mouth, heard lust-grunts and the breathing of onlookers. This is no dream, this is real"
"she stopped reacting, stopped mentioning pain, stopped referring to pain even in her thoughts. Until now it had been inside her; now she was inside it; pain was the weather around her, was time, was the entire world"
"She didn’t know if she was going mad or going sane"
"He has his Father’s eyes"
Very mundane and slow paced, with characters that aren’t terribly interesting one way or another, very little actually happens... and yet... it really worked out for me! The pacing of the story and the deliberate monotony of their lives served imho to further the idea of this young woman possibly going insane. Rosemary isn’t an interesting main character; she’s a regular stay at home young wife that isn’t very wordly or experienced, TO ME that helps sell the horrible idea that this simple girl who lives and breathes for her husband still got sold to the devil in exchange for some acting gigs, it’s actually sickening, like the woman would leave. her. house if Guy’s asks her to bc he has to "practice his lines"and he has the audacity to let some cult r4pe her gaslight her and psychologically abus3 her... and you know what I hated most about Guy? that he had the balls to tell Rosemary that after it’s done they’ll move to Cali and live the dream life they always wanted SHUT THE FVCK UP LEAVE HER ALONE
But alas...
Another thing i really enjoyed was the writing and how, again going back to the mundaneness, every little thing that seemed a bit off or slightly suspicious would ring alarms in my head; as it did with Rosemary. Throughout the whole book we’re second guessing and plotting and thinking, is it actually a cult, or am i just paranoid? Are the next door neighbors being off-putting and pushy because they’re trying to bring the Antichrist or because they’re elderly and lonely?
Obviously the book has its faults, the slow pacing can only work for so long and there’s the occasional homophobic line that i expected from a white man in the 60´s, but despite all that I would highly recommend reading this book; if you’re intrigued by it, if you’ve seen the movie (like me) and want to see if it’s as good. but not if you DIDN’T like the movie and hope that this is better, it’s about the same or perhaps sliiightly lower.
"there are good houses too, houses where people keep falling in love and getting married and having babies" "Probably there are, only one never hears of them. It’s the stinkers that get the publicity"
"She opened her eyes and looked into yellow furnace-eyes, smelled sulphur and tannis root, felt wet breath on her mouth, heard lust-grunts and the breathing of onlookers. This is no dream, this is real"
"she stopped reacting, stopped mentioning pain, stopped referring to pain even in her thoughts. Until now it had been inside her; now she was inside it; pain was the weather around her, was time, was the entire world"
"She didn’t know if she was going mad or going sane"
"He has his Father’s eyes"
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape