You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
Complete thoughts here: https://youtu.be/ucE2VB_K_Z0
First of all, I need King to stop saying 'dope' about drugs.
Secondly, a good book, however I felt like it really ran out of steam there at the end. It combined a lot of his other stories, Green Mile, Storm of the Century, etc, into one thing that, for the most part, really didn't work for me.
Secondly, a good book, however I felt like it really ran out of steam there at the end. It combined a lot of his other stories, Green Mile, Storm of the Century, etc, into one thing that, for the most part, really didn't work for me.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
No
The concept of this book was intriguing, but the execution left a lot to be desired. The most obvious issue was the length, which was about twice as much as would have been needed. I also felt there were far too many characters, because they blurred together and generally seemed flat and uninteresting. I couldn't convince myself to care about any of them or about what happened to them. It's not a compliment when I'm more interested in checking how many pages I still have to get through than what's going on in the story.
...Yeah, this was not for me. Disappointment.
...Yeah, this was not for me. Disappointment.
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really enjoyed this. I think I'm a fan of Mr. King's collabo's with his offspring. I remember after reading 11/22/63 thinking to myself, "Wow, this is one of the few times King has stuck the landing," because I thought that book, unlike most of his others, had a satisfying conclusion. Then I read an interview where he said his son (Joe Hill, I think) helped him with the ending. This book, too, is what I would call a successful collaboration, and it too holds up all the way through. I also like the book's feminist messages--feels particularly relevant today.
Fresh off of declaring, "Horror is just not my thing," what do I read next?
I've been thinking lately about horror I enjoy versus horror I don't enjoy, which made me nostalgic for my Stephen King phase, plus I kept hearing interesting buzz about the concept of this novel, so onto my hold list it went.
This monster of a book kind of absorbed my entire life, which it would have to for me to finish all 702 pages in three days. I am still kind of processing how I feel about it.
Don't go into this book expecting any kind of thorough critique of gender. Despite the entire book being about an affliction that affects all women and only women, there is nary a mention of trans men or trans women, which is something I think people would definitely be interested in in this situation. There are some very over-simplified "men are this way, women are this way" bits, but all from character POVs that make sense. You do sometimes wish for one woke folk to stand up and say, "it's our societal definitions of gender rather than biological determinism that yields the behavior you're describing," but, nope.
The whole thing could not be more perfectly timed though, published in the wake of the Weinstein scandal when every few days some new bigwig/actor/director/writer is outed and shamed as a rapist/harasser. It's hard not to root for the cocooned women who blindly dismember those who disturb their rest.
One thing that was weird about the book was how often a character would suddenly say or think something about being black, and every time my reaction was, "Wait, they're black?" and I would scramble across chapters and chapters of that character existing in the story looking for any clue or mention of ethnicity. It was especially odd because it usually came up in a "how being black has shaped my life" thought. HOW MUCH CAN IT HAVE SHAPED THEIR LIFE IF YOU HAVE GIVEN US NOT ONE INDICATION OF SUCH UP UNTIL THIS POINT? DOES THEIR RACE MATTER OR DOESN'T IT? DO YOU EVEN KNOW?
I think naming the agent of disturbance in this story Evie without ever really deciding if there is a Biblical Eve, or Biblical God, and just borrowing that imagery without making it really consistent was unnecessarily messy.
Despite all this, I actually really enjoyed reading it. It was like someone put Orange is the New Black, Justified, and The Stand in a blender with some moths. And I like 3 out of 4 of those things. (Still have never seen/read OINTB.) I liked the sheriff and the book club ladies and the puppy love and the women discovering each other's hidden skills in Our Place and Angel the homicidal maniac.
A good creepy read for Halloween. Horror still isn't really my thing, though.
I've been thinking lately about horror I enjoy versus horror I don't enjoy, which made me nostalgic for my Stephen King phase, plus I kept hearing interesting buzz about the concept of this novel, so onto my hold list it went.
This monster of a book kind of absorbed my entire life, which it would have to for me to finish all 702 pages in three days. I am still kind of processing how I feel about it.
Don't go into this book expecting any kind of thorough critique of gender. Despite the entire book being about an affliction that affects all women and only women, there is nary a mention of trans men or trans women, which is something I think people would definitely be interested in in this situation. There are some very over-simplified "men are this way, women are this way" bits, but all from character POVs that make sense. You do sometimes wish for one woke folk to stand up and say, "it's our societal definitions of gender rather than biological determinism that yields the behavior you're describing," but, nope.
The whole thing could not be more perfectly timed though, published in the wake of the Weinstein scandal when every few days some new bigwig/actor/director/writer is outed and shamed as a rapist/harasser. It's hard not to root for the cocooned women who blindly dismember those who disturb their rest.
One thing that was weird about the book was how often a character would suddenly say or think something about being black, and every time my reaction was, "Wait, they're black?" and I would scramble across chapters and chapters of that character existing in the story looking for any clue or mention of ethnicity. It was especially odd because it usually came up in a "how being black has shaped my life" thought. HOW MUCH CAN IT HAVE SHAPED THEIR LIFE IF YOU HAVE GIVEN US NOT ONE INDICATION OF SUCH UP UNTIL THIS POINT? DOES THEIR RACE MATTER OR DOESN'T IT? DO YOU EVEN KNOW?
I think naming the agent of disturbance in this story Evie without ever really deciding if there is a Biblical Eve, or Biblical God, and just borrowing that imagery without making it really consistent was unnecessarily messy.
Despite all this, I actually really enjoyed reading it. It was like someone put Orange is the New Black, Justified, and The Stand in a blender with some moths. And I like 3 out of 4 of those things. (Still have never seen/read OINTB.) I liked the sheriff and the book club ladies and the puppy love and the women discovering each other's hidden skills in Our Place and Angel the homicidal maniac.
A good creepy read for Halloween. Horror still isn't really my thing, though.
This book was too long and had too many charechters. It was interesting until the middle then it became a slow read. I was almost not going to finish it. Started to read it in October , stopped in November . Now I picked it up 5 days ago and finished it while skipping so many parts of it.
Very disappointed with this book since I’m a Stephen king fan.
Very disappointed with this book since I’m a Stephen king fan.
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Good concept with better execution, a solid King book.
Sleeping Beauties
A Novel
By Stephen King and Owen King
Read by: Marin Ireland
Courtesy Simon & Schuster
I went into this audiobook expecting the wonderful hair raising horror experience that I have enjoyed from Stephen King since reading his first book, Carrie, back in the 1970’s. So I did have high expectations. I expected a good story, great characters and something normal morphing into something that scared the crap out of me (example clowns).Sleeping Beauties did not deliver. I did not find the book or characters enjoyable.
In a small town in Appalachia there is a women’s prison. Many of the women are there because of drugs or domestic violence that caused them to break the law. A strange illness breaks out at the prison where the women fall into a deep sleep and are enveloped in a cocoon. If they are removed from the cocoon, they become dangerous and homicidal. While the women are in the cocoon they travel to a different place. Time is different. There are no men. They are safe and heal from their traumas. Meanwhile, the men go into testosterone overdrive. There are a lot of guns, a lot of driving around, and a lot of dealing with the situation by violence.
I found that I just did not care about the women or the men. I did not find any reason to connect to them. Marin Ireland did a nice job narrating. My inability to get into the book had to do with the story and not the narration.
A Novel
By Stephen King and Owen King
Read by: Marin Ireland
Courtesy Simon & Schuster
I went into this audiobook expecting the wonderful hair raising horror experience that I have enjoyed from Stephen King since reading his first book, Carrie, back in the 1970’s. So I did have high expectations. I expected a good story, great characters and something normal morphing into something that scared the crap out of me (example clowns).Sleeping Beauties did not deliver. I did not find the book or characters enjoyable.
In a small town in Appalachia there is a women’s prison. Many of the women are there because of drugs or domestic violence that caused them to break the law. A strange illness breaks out at the prison where the women fall into a deep sleep and are enveloped in a cocoon. If they are removed from the cocoon, they become dangerous and homicidal. While the women are in the cocoon they travel to a different place. Time is different. There are no men. They are safe and heal from their traumas. Meanwhile, the men go into testosterone overdrive. There are a lot of guns, a lot of driving around, and a lot of dealing with the situation by violence.
I found that I just did not care about the women or the men. I did not find any reason to connect to them. Marin Ireland did a nice job narrating. My inability to get into the book had to do with the story and not the narration.
Maybe one day I'll come back to this book, and maybe then I will actually like what I am reading. Because right now, after struggling to read this book over and over again during these last two years, I have finally decided to give up.