Book Review: Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King

Ah, this book. I make no apologies for the fact that I will read all things Stephen King, regardless of what the subject matter is. He’s one of my favorite authors and, across the board, I’ve been enamored enough with his writing that he’s essentially an auto-borrow/auto-buy for me. When this dark story, featuring his son as a co-writer, came out I was intrigued. It went straight to the top of my library hold list and I waited patiently for my turn. All the while, I secretly hoped I would be blown away at this.

As it turns out, Sleeping Beauties didn’t quite live up to what I was hoping for. The concept of the story I did very much enjoy. Imagine a world where almost all women are out of the picture. Oh, they haven’t disappeared but, worse still, they’ve simply ceased to function. They lie dormat, as a reminder to the men in their lives of what they’ve lost. I loved the idea of a world where men were left to fend for themselves. I think the Kings really took the time to ponder over what kind of madness would ensue and, for the most part, I think they hit it right on the head. Not one bit of what the men in this book did when “the Aurora virus” hit surprised me. In all its darkness and brutality, it felt right.

I also loved the idea between Evie Black’s character, and the choice that she presents to the women in this book. As a gender, women have come to begrudingly accept the fact that men continue to make the rules that govern our lives. What if that wasn’t the case though? What if there was a chance to start over, without that fact in place, and do things differently? This whole idea just felt so perfect to me. Watching these women choose between a new world, and the men and boys they left behind felt… right. I don’t know how else to explain it. Honestly.

What really lowered my star rating of this book though was just the god awful length of it. It drags, and drags, pulling out things that could have easily been resolved in a chapter or two. Although I appreciated the time to get to know the characters, after a while I began to hate them for how human they all were and how long it took them to make decisions. Everyone was always so blind to the needs and wants of everyone else. I suppose that’s real life, and that’s probably why it was so frustrating. I’m not going to lie, I almost gave up on this book multiple times for how slow it was moving.

However at the end of it all, I’m glad I finished. The message here is actually one that I think is really important. One of my respected reviewer friends referred to this as a “smart book” and I’m apt to agree. This story isn’t being told to be entirely easy to read and mindlessly entertaining, it’s being told to make a point. I think it does that, so 3 stars are totally deserved.