Reviews - Rosemary's Baby | The StoryGraph

3.45k reviews for:

Rosemary's Baby

Ira Levin

4.0 AVERAGE

jjayne's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

cmars83's review against another edition

3.0

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

aeroyou's review against another edition

3.5

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

mossgarden's review against another edition

5.0

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Feel Rosemary's belly, the antichrist is kicking!

Loved the suspense and tension of this book even though I knew how it would end having seen the movie before. I think knowing how it ends actually made for a better read because I was able to pick up all the breadcrumbs that Levin was putting down. Great for people like me who can't handle the grotesque scares and would rather opt for the psychological.

A lot of what made this "horror" back in the day was how much more people were stricken with

satanic panic

. Nowadays if you start making claims about

Satan or Satan worshippers

you're going to get written off as an insane bible thumper. To me, the real horror was how Rosemary is a vulnerable, pregnant woman, reliant on her husband, with few friends or family in her daily life, who is constantly being gaslit and when

she does seek help, she is immediately betrayed and given back to the people abusing her!

That's terrifying. Perfect ending for me would have been Rosemary doing a lot more to Guy than just spitting on his face.