emilymf 's review for:

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

4.5

dark tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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this is my second ira levin book and i'm always surprised at how well he writes form a woman's perspective. rosemary feels like such a real person, and i thought a lot of her thought process were really reasonable. i could pretty much see what was coming but probably because this story has been so influential and i've seen other horror that references it; i still enjoyed reading it. the story itself is entertaining, but i also think it opens up a whole other conversation about women and pregnancy and hysteria and sexual assault and religion and manipulation. even when the ending started to feel like maybe a little bit too much for me, it calmed down and i could really see how rosemary reacted the way she did (vague to avoid spoilers, sorry if reads weird). i'm definitely glad i read it and would recommend it to horror fans. easy read and not ever really too slow even though we're going through mundane activities at times. i feel like having an idea of what the ending is helped with keeping up tension the whole time; i'm not sure how i would've felt if i was going in completely blind. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault