A story about this — 1 year ago
The handsome prince wakens the sleeping Beauty, not with a kiss, but with something altogether less wholesome – and then proceeds to claim her as a submissive slave, to be kept naked and on her hands and knees. Shocking? Not really – but the castle full of such slaves and endless spanking and other punishments might be!
I can’t figure who would be the audience for this book. It didn’t make any of it sound appealing to me, from the outside. Otherwise, if you’re already in to dominant/submissive play I’m not sure this wouldn’t be rather tame – although, having read and come away with that idea (‘tame’), really it’s not: the bulk of the action is centred around ‘paddling’, but there are some harder, darker tortures in there. I suspect that back in the 70s when the book was first written it might be a whole lot more shocking. As it is, years of Eurotrash and goodness knows what else has exposed current generations to at least the ideas of far worse.
Personally, I can’t say I was particularly anything about it all: not shocked, not turned on. Irritated, maybe – I know, there are plenty of explanations about why these people don’t escape, and there are as many male as female ‘slaves’, but the imposing of one will over another – however much Beauty ‘sort of likes it’ – just makes me rather annoyed!
And in the end (no pun intended) all that spanking just seemed entirely boring, to me! Still, I have an odd urge to try the next book(s – it’s a trilogy), but only to see what else Ms Rice can do with the story, as I’m sure another few hundred pages of red buttocks can’t be ‘it’!!
