In 'Sleeping Beauties', an intriguing premise unfolds as women worldwide fall asleep, becoming encased in cocoons, while one woman named 'Eve Black' remains immune in a small Appalachian town. The story revolves around the town's residents, including employees and prisoners of a women's prison, as they grapple with the mysterious disease and Eve's presence among them. The Kings blend the supernatural with realistic characters and settings, creating a solid and entertaining narrative that delves into themes of peace, cooperation, hopelessness, and human emotions.
The plot tracks the rapid spread of a sleeping sickness affecting only women, leading to chaos and panic in the world. In a small town called Dooling, a woman named Evie emerges as a supernatural figure amidst the crisis, offering a potential cure. The story unfolds with a diverse cast of characters, from inmates to townspeople, showcasing Stephen King's masterful character development and thought-provoking themes, making readers ponder on male-female relations and societal issues.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Triggers and content warnings for Sleeping Beauties include themes of violence, gender-based violence, sexual assault, mental illness, substance abuse, and animal cruelty.
Has Romance?
There are elements of romance present in Sleeping Beauties, focusing on relationships and familial bonds, but it is not the main focus of the narrative.
From The Publisher:
In this spectacular New York Times bestselling father/son collaboration that "barrels along like a freight train" (Publishers Weekly), Stephen King and Owen King tell the highest of high-stakes stories: what might happen if women disappeared from the world of men?
In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent. And while they sleep they go to another place, a better place, where harmony prevails and conflict is rare. One woman, the mysterious "Eve Black," is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Eve a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain?
Abandoned, left to their increasingly primal urges, the men divide into warring factions, some wanted to kill Eve, some to save her. Others exploit the chaos to wreak their own vengeance on new enemies. All turn to violence in a suddenly all-male world. Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a woman's prison, Sleeping Beauties is a wildly provocative, gloriously dramatic father-son collaboration that feels particularly urgent and relevant today.
Ratings (21)
Incredible (2) | |
Loved It (6) | |
Liked It (7) | |
It Was OK (5) | |
Did Not Like (1) |
Reader Stats (51):
Read It (22) | |
Want To Read (24) | |
Did Not Finish (2) | |
Not Interested (3) |
3 comment(s)
3.5 stars. It started out really strong and I was really enjoying it, even thinking this would be a 5 stars read. But I feelt like the story was to draged out and long. By the end I was more eager to finish it rather then finding out how it would end and I wasn't focused on the story. But most of the book was good just way to long
gather round, stephen king and son (sorry owen) have something to say about the patriarchy.....
............
(ahem)
........it's complicated.
which is true! but that's why it's so hard to write a
stand-like novel about it. there is no randall flagg gathering up the scum of the earth. there's no mother abigail representing all that is good and worthy. there's just people, and some of them are jerks and some aren't.
are more men jerks than women? yes. but as the much better writer margaret atwood said, women are villains too. and her character serena joy is a perfect example of why it is hard to write about the patriarchy with nuance.
i would have liked this book if i knew what the point of it was. the only reason i finished it was to see if the wrap-up had some wisdom about eve or the tree that i was missing.
it did not.
I really enjoyed that this was a mix of Owen and Stephen which made for a different voice and direction of the plot. I was intrigued by the concept but felt some parts could have been more developed. But maybe that's just because I was interested; I loved the world being presented and wanted to know more. The length didn't bother me both from being used to King's books and because I was genuinely interested in where this was all going and what it was going to culminate in. I found it to be a solid addition to the litany of "what if" scenarios King's book's have presented to me.
What can you read after
Sleeping Beauties?
About the Author:
Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, and Doctor Sleep are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.
Owen King is the author of the novel Double Feature and We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories. He is the coauthor of Intro to Alien Invasion and the coeditor of Who Can Save Us Now? Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories. He lives in Upstate New York with his wife, the writer Kelly Braffet, and their daughter.
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