Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surprising, thought-provoking, disturbing and beautiful, 30 Nov 2005
The back-of-book blurb for this compares it to Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal, but the only similarity is the basic theme of a relationship between a teacher and student. In every other way, this Australian novel could not be more different.Sarah Clark is a 14 year-old student seduced by her English teacher, the vile yet oddly appealing Mr Carr. Sado-masochistic sex follows before teacher takes off leaving Sarah to spin out of control for the rest of her teen years. Just when you think this is another abused-child-turned-bad book things take a suprising twist when the adult Sarah initates a relationship with her former teacher. What follows is the darkest, most painful portrayal of an obsessive relationship I have ever read. Taming the Beast is a little bit Lolita and a little bit The Great Gatsby with huge servings of the Marquis de Sade all mixed into a gripping, heartbreaking story written in a fresh, original voice. If you're squeamish about graphic sex you'll have a hard time, but otherwise I recommend it to anyone interested in literature, love and female sexuality and power.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Appropriately, nothing concise comes to mind, 27 Sep 2006
This book is so hard to categorize, insofar as it deals with lots of issues. It starts off as a teen fantasy, when a 14yr old girl is relatively graphically seduced by her teacher in the classroom; it then turns into a slightly contrived beautiful-but-messed-up-and-all-the-more-attractive-for-it novel where the same girl, now a poor student/waitress living in a bedist, literally has sex with anyone who looks her way - including boyfriends of friends and her own best friend.
She's almost your typical beautiful waif, very slightly built, with the mettle of someone who's had your had-knocks education, and is just aching to be rescued by a big handsome stranger.
It's actually a testament to the skill of the author that you don't abjectly despise her, and as her life, and behaviour, spiral even further, you get a sense that this might not be your typical novel.
When our heroine bumps into her former teacher, the book sharply veers away from its predicted "Hollywood" path.
What follows is a shocking, insightful and painful look at what a truly dysfunctional, mutually abusive relationship can be when both people involved fundamentally loathe themselves.
With the loss of a major character, it could have become twee, but that person's disintergration is so beautifully written, it'll make you catch your breath for a second.
If you want hardcore sex, this isn't the book for you, because you'll have to go through many pages of beautifully written novel to get to the "good bits" (having said that, Ms Maguire really doesn't hold back when it comes to it); but if you want something that'll initially give you a slight tingle, then veer off into something that takes the breath from you and makes you cry, you'll enjoy this book very much.
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Love, lust, sex & obssession down under, 9 Nov 2005
I found Maguire's debut an intense and often disturbing tale about lust, love, obessession and the desparate measures people will go to, to be loved and get love. This certainly is not a novel for the faint-hearted, nor those who object to graphic sex scenes, of which there are many.
At first I thought it was going to be a tale about how love can conquer all but in the second half of the novel, when our heroine, or should I say anti-heroine meets up with her former teacher, the novel takes a dark turn and towards the end I wondered what kind of message the author was trying to give me.
Can you love too much? Are some people naturally destructive, even to those they claim to love?
If you like uncompromising novels that show the world in all its (often cruel) glory, a tell-it-like-it-is writing style, you're not adverse to graphic sex and you want to be challenged emotionally, then you should definitely read Taming The Beast.
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