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A review by jsilber42
Sleeping Beauties by Owen King, Stephen King
3.0
Stephen & Owen King tackle very timely themes of misogyny head-on in a fantasy/horror novel that feels a little like a cross between "The Stand" and "Under the Dome". A large cast of characters in a small Appalachian town struggles to deal with a mysterious supernatural plague/phenomenon in which women fall asleep, become cocooned, and then do not awaken.
It's interesting to see such an overtly thematic book from King, who, while fairly vocal about his politics, rarely focuses a book around them in such a direct way. The sleeping plague is creative and gruesome (if they women are forced awake, they attempt to violently murder whomever awakened them), and an interesting way of approaching themes of women in society. Additionally, the Kings do not spare the reader from the very unpleasant, misogynistic thoughts of many of the antagonistic characters in the book. To get into too much detail would spoil surprises, but suffice to say the story also examines the possibility of both a world without men and a world without women.
Unfortunately, after a rousing beginning, the book becomes a bit of a slog about halfway through until the big finale, and I found myself wondering why it needed to be 700 pages long. "Under the Dome" did a better job of keeping the tension building throughout, I thought. Conversely, the the book almost needed to be longer to flesh out the cast of characters better - by the time they start dropping like flies near the end, we realize how few of them we actually know or care about.
Sleeping Beauties is still definitely worth a read, but despite the strong, effective themes, I would not place it in my top ten Stephen King list.
It's interesting to see such an overtly thematic book from King, who, while fairly vocal about his politics, rarely focuses a book around them in such a direct way. The sleeping plague is creative and gruesome (if they women are forced awake, they attempt to violently murder whomever awakened them), and an interesting way of approaching themes of women in society. Additionally, the Kings do not spare the reader from the very unpleasant, misogynistic thoughts of many of the antagonistic characters in the book. To get into too much detail would spoil surprises, but suffice to say the story also examines the possibility of both a world without men and a world without women.
Unfortunately, after a rousing beginning, the book becomes a bit of a slog about halfway through until the big finale, and I found myself wondering why it needed to be 700 pages long. "Under the Dome" did a better job of keeping the tension building throughout, I thought. Conversely, the the book almost needed to be longer to flesh out the cast of characters better - by the time they start dropping like flies near the end, we realize how few of them we actually know or care about.
Sleeping Beauties is still definitely worth a read, but despite the strong, effective themes, I would not place it in my top ten Stephen King list.