Beauty’s Kingdom: A Novel in the Sleeping Beauty Series by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice) lost me very quickly. Sure, it’s sexy. I found some of the characters too unlikable–most surprisingly, Eva, the narrator. She and the author seemed to share a certain smug ‘we’ve created the perfect system’ attitude. I gave myself the usual 30 pages plus in which to change my mind, but I couldn’t get my interest up. There’s such an emphasis on the slaves that for some reason they always have to specify ‘naked pleasure slave’. It’s such a sought-after thing, apparently, that kings and queens and rich nobles send their children to be taught to be pleasure slaves. Oops, I mean ‘naked pleasure slaves’. It felt very… utopian. It felt like it was pushing this idea of pleasure slaves (sigh, ‘naked pleasure slaves’) as a cure-all for all manner of emotional and political issues. If a setting could be seen as a person, this one would be a Mary Sue.
Book provided free by publisher for review
Expected publication date: April 19, 2016
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