Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

There are some classic books I avoid for a variety of reasons. Some I avoid due to my assumption that the story has been told to death in multiple different ways and there's no reason to read the original. Some I avoid to give myself a good read or watch to look forward to in later life. I have to apologize to Ira Levin's memory that I included Rosemary's Baby in the first category and not the second. I finally decided to read it, and it is absolutely amazing. 

I started reading it not knowing what it was, thinking it was just a spooky story about witches and the Anti-Christ and what-not....I was wrong. This is probably the most blatantly Feminist book I've ever read other than something by Margaret Atwood. Rosemary's Baby can be read entirely as an allegory for women being subjugated and gaslight into subservience and exploitation by their partners and society as a whole! And despite that, simply reading it on the surface level of conspiracies and doubts and secret societies is just as interesting and engaging. 

The layers to this story are brilliant. The hints and little things dropped casually throughout and the limited scope of Rosemary's narrative knowledge build such a tight story that you can't but keep pressing on to find out what happens next. I don't usually focus on the style of narration, but here the limited third-person is done masterfully to help build and compound the suspense and horror. It is rare for a book to give me that same feeling of screaming "DON'T GO IN THE CELLAR!!" as you can get during a movie, but this book totally pulls it off. I'll never look at black candles the same way again....or linen closest for that matter.